History of South Korea

Main article: South Korea

2025: Suspended but incumbent arrested for first time in South Korean history

In January 2024, investigators arrested an temporarily suspended but incumbent president for the first time in South Korean history.

Investigators arrested Yoon after the president repeatedly rejected subpoenas to be summoned for questioning. South Korean President Yoon Seok-yol has been arrested on "suspicion of rebellion against democracy."

The arrest comes a day after a separate impeachment trial began that will decide whether Yoon should be removed from power.

On January 18, the Seoul Western District Court issued a warrant for the detention of President Yoon Sok El. This is the first time in the Republic of Korea that an acting (albeit deprived of authority) leader of a state is put in a prison cell.

The Corruption Investigation Department still got its way. The president did not utter a word during its holding, since he and his team consider the actions of the body investigating the case illegal. Yun must sit in a cell (they say single) for at least 20 days.

Meanwhile, supporters of the president broke into the Western District Court building, breaking windows and attacking the police. Law enforcement officers are using additional forces to suppress the riots. The media write that the protesters are looking for judges who have issued a warrant for the detention of the president.

About 100 supporters of the president entered the district courthouse. They threw plastic chairs, ashtrays, fire extinguishers and other objects at the police, which they found next to them. Reported injured.

2024

Largest plane crash in the country's history: 179 dead due to marriage in Boeing 737 chassis

Investigators investigating the causes of South Korea's worst civil aviation disaster will focus on a non-standard landing gear failure in the final moments of the fateful flight that killed all but two of the 181 passengers on the Boeing 737.

The accident on December 29, 2024 became the worst passenger plane crash in the history of South Korea.

South Korean authorities will check all Boeing 737-800 aircraft in the country after the crash of Jeju Air.

South Korea broadcasts propaganda at DPRK border, while North Korea sends thousands of trash balloons to neighbor

The South Korean government does not restrict the broadcast of propaganda across the border against the DPRK, which caused the launch of garbage balls into the country from North Korea.

In September 2024, the DPRK once again sent garbage balls to the territory of South Korea. Since May, several thousand of them have already been sent, and recently the 20th anniversary launch took place.

Everything happens according to the standard scheme - North Korea sends "gifts," and in South they wait for them to fall themselves to then remove waste. They fundamentally refuse to shoot down such air targets for fear of damaging infrastructure.

Pyongyang is well aware of this and does not plan to reduce the scale of such raids. According to the latest estimates, the material damage from them for the authorities in Seoul is $140 thousand. Moreover, during the last launches of the balls, fires broke out at least twice at the places where they fell.

And although the level of public dissatisfaction with the approach of the South Korean authorities is growing, the government is not yet going to take serious measures to combat the problem.

Authorities in Seoul could follow in the footsteps of a past administration that restricted provocative actions by its own activists. Such moves, however, do not fit into the current president's overt anti-North Korean policies.

2022: Yoon Suk-yol is South Korea's new president

On March 10, 2022, it became known that Yun Suk Yol, a presidential candidate from the conservative People's Power Party, won the presidential election. He outperformed Lee Jae-myung's Democratic rival by 0.7 percentage points, the smallest margin since the country adopted a direct presidential election system in 1987. Read more here.

2020:4 skyscrapers built in Seoul in a year

Cities of the world in which the largest number of skyscrapers were built in 2020 (200 meters high or higher)

1987

A mother pleads with riot police to return her son, after he was arrested at a demonstration accusing the government of fraud in the presidential election. Kuro, South Korea, December 18, 1987

1975

South Korea. If the police catch you crossing the road in the wrong place, you will have to stand in a box of shame for 30 minutes. 1975

1971

A man is thrown out of a burning hotel with a mattress to soften the fall. Seoul, Republic of Korea, 1971.

1954

American actress Marilyn Monroe speaks to American soldiers. Korea. 1954

1953

A North Korean prisoner of war swears with American officers, in the middle of a military base of South Korean soldiers. September 1953

1950: Outbreak of the Korean War

North and South leaders Kim Jong Il and Lee Seung Man wanted the country united, but under different flags and different ideas. On the border of 38 parallels, armed skirmishes broke out many times. And on June 25, 1950, the war began. North Korean troops quickly defeated their enemy, captured the capital Seoul and by October reached the city of Busan in the very south.

Korean refugees overcome a bridge twisted by an airstrike, 1950.

And at this stage, the civil war began to turn into an international one.

More than 260 thousand Americans fought on the side of the South, not counting the US Navy and Air Force operating off the coast of Korea. In addition to the United States, the multinational forces included limited contingents of 15 countries.

The Korean People's Army could not withstand such a blow. The forces were too unequal. Suffice it to say that the North Korean army had 40 tanks, and their opponents - 500 and so on all types of modern weapons. The front quickly rolled back, crossed 38 parallels and approached the border river Yalujiang, which separates China and Korea.

South Korean military police are interrogating North Korean prisoners of war. October 20, 1950.

And only then Chinese volunteers entered the battle on the side of the DPRK, and Soviet pilots covered them from the sky.

U.S. Marine soldiers watch napalm bombing of Chinese positions during the Korean War. December 26, 1950.

1949: USSR and US troops leave Korea

In 1948, Soviet troops were withdrawn from Korea, and the Americans left the next year.

1945: The division of Korea into North and South

The fact that Korea, which for several decades was actually a colony of Japan, should be a free and independent state, was decided at a meeting of the leaders of the United States, Great Britain and the USSR in Yalta. And in August 1945, the north of the country was liberated from Japanese troops by patriots Kim Jong Il and Soviet troops. And in the south, in September, US troops did the same.

The division of Korea into the DPRK and the Republic of Korea occurred in 1945 after the defeat of Japan, which had previously ruled Korea, in World War II. The United States and the USSR signed an agreement on joint management of the country. The line of division of the zones of influence of the two superpowers passed along the 38th parallel.

1901

Korean swing, early 20th century.