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See also: | Other events in 1948 Years in South Korea Timeline of Korean history 1948 in North Korea |
Events from the year 1948 in South Korea .
The history of South Korea begins with the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945. At that time, South Korea and North Korea were divided, despite being the same people and on the same peninsula. In 1950, the Korean War broke out. North Korea overran South Korea until US-lead UN forces intervened. At the end of the war in 1953, the border between South and North remained largely similar. Tensions between the two sides continued. South Korea alternated between dictatorship and liberal democracy. It underwent substantial economic development.
Syngman Rhee was a South Korean politician who served as the first president of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. Rhee is also known by his art name Unam. Rhee was also the first and last president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea from 1919 to his impeachment in 1925 and from 1947 to 1948. As president of South Korea, Rhee's government was characterised by authoritarianism, limited economic development, and in the late 1950s growing political instability and public opposition.
The division of Korea began on August 15, 1945 when the official announcement of the surrender of Japan was released, thus ending the Pacific Theater of World War II. During the war, the Allied leaders had already been considering the question of Korea's future following Japan's eventual surrender in the war. The leaders reached an understanding that Korea would be liberated from Japan but would be placed under an international trusteeship until the Koreans would be deemed ready for self-rule. In the last days of the war, the United States proposed dividing the Korean peninsula into two occupation zones with the 38th parallel as the dividing line. The Soviets accepted their proposal and agreed to divide Korea.
Yun Po-sun was a South Korean politician and activist who served as the second president of South Korea from 1960 to 1962. He was the only president of the parliamentary Second Republic of Korea.
The Jeju uprising, known in South Korea as the Jeju April 3 incident, was an uprising on Jeju Island from April 1948 to May 1949. A year prior to its start, residents of Jeju had begun protesting elections scheduled by the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTCOK) to be held in the United States-occupied half of Korea, which they believed would entrench the division of the country. A general strike was later organised by the Workers' Party of South Korea (WPSK) from February to March 1948. The WPSK launched an insurgency in April 1948, attacking police and Northwest Youth League members stationed on Jeju who had been mobilized to suppress the protests by force. The First Republic of Korea under President Syngman Rhee escalated the suppression of the uprising from August 1948, declaring martial law in November and beginning an "eradication campaign" against rebel forces in the rural areas of Jeju in March 1949, defeating them within two months. Many rebel veterans and suspected sympathizers were later killed upon the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, and the existence of the Jeju uprising was officially censored and repressed in South Korea for several decades.
The Korean Provisional Government (KPG), formally the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, was a Korean government in exile based in China during the Japanese occupation of Korea.
The United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) was the official ruling body of the Southern half of the Korean Peninsula from 8 September 1945 to 15 August 1948.
Constitutional Assembly elections were held in South Korea on 10 May 1948. They were held under the U.S. military occupation, with supervision from the United Nations, and resulted in a victory for the National Association for the Rapid Realisation of Korean Independence, which won 55 of the 200 seats, although 85 were held by independents. Voter turnout was 95%.
The Korea Democratic Party was the leading opposition party in the first years of the First Republic of Korea. It existed from 1945 to 1949, when it merged with other opposition parties.
The April Revolution, also called the April 19 Revolution or April 19 Movement, were mass protests in South Korea against President Syngman Rhee and the First Republic from April 11 to 26, 1960, which led to Rhee's resignation.
This is a timeline of Korean history.
The Korean Liberation Army, also known as the Korean Restoration Army, was the armed forces of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. It was established on September 17, 1940, in Chongqing, Republic of China, with significant financial and personnel support from the Kuomintang. It participated in various battles and intelligence activities against the Japanese, including alongside the British Army in India and with the United States in the Eagle Project. The group only reached several hundred personnel at its peak, and faced constant funding issues, infighting, and difficulty achieving recognition from global powers. The modern Republic of Korea Armed Forces and the Korean People's Army are widely considered to be the successor of the Korean Liberation Army.
The Liberal Party was a far-right corporatist and anti-communist political party in South Korea established in 1951 by Syngman Rhee.
Chang Myon was a South Korean statesman, educator, diplomat, journalist and social activist as well as a Roman Catholic youth activist. He was the only prime minister of the parliamentary Second Republic. In addition, during the First Republic he was the fourth and last vice president of South Korea. His art name was Unseok (운석). His English name was John Chang Myon.
Yi Yun-young was an independence activist, educator, and Methodist minister during the Japanese occupation of Korea. His family clan originated in Danyang, and he was from Yongbyon in Pyonganbuk-do. His art name was Baeksa. During the March 1st Independence Movement, he was arrested for holding a lecture declaring independence and protesting against the Japanese occupation. In 1940, his pastoral qualifications were suspended because he opposed the unification of the churches in Korea and Japan and refused to adapt Sōshi-kaimei. After the Liberation, he participated with Cho Man-sik in the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence, founded the Korean Democratic Party, and was active as the party's vice leader. After his escape to the South, he was recommended as acting Prime Minister. After the establishment of Korea's government, he was named to be the first prime minister, but he was defeated because of the rejection of his confirmation by the Korea Democratic Party. After that, he was named to be the prime minister three more times, but each time he was rejected. Being one of Syngman Rhee's closest allies, he served as Minister without Portfolio and Minister of Social Affairs during the First Republic. He ran for vice president representing the anti-Lee Ki-poong faction but was defeated. After the May 16th Coup, he was Chairman of the Committee for Struggle against the prolongation of Military Government and executive member of the People's Party. He was an aide of Cho Man-sik, then after he defected to the South, he worked as an aide to Syngman Rhee.
Presidential and vice- presidential elections were held in South Korea on 20 July 1948, following the Constitutional Assembly elections in May. The president was to be elected by the members of the National Assembly, as instructed by the 1948 Constitution. Of the 198 members of the National Assembly, 196 were present for the vote. A candidate required two-thirds of the votes cast to win. Syngman Rhee was elected with 180 votes, and took over the government to oversee the transfer of power from the United States Army Military Government in Korea.
Cho Bong-am was a South Korean independence activist and politician, who ran for president in the South Korean presidential election in 1956. He was a founding member of the Communist Party of Korea and the Progressive Party, a moderate socialist democratic party in South Korea which was one of the country's major political forces.
Ilminism, frequently translated as the One-People Principle, One-People Doctrine, or Unidemism, was the political ideology of South Korea under its first President, Syngman Rhee. The Ilminist principle has been likened by contemporary scholars to the Nazi ideal of the Herrenvolk and was part of an effort to consolidate a united and obedient citizenry around Rhee's strong central leadership through appeals to ultranationalism and ethnic supremacy. In general, "Ilminists" often refers to pro-Syngman Rhee (groups).
Kim Hong-il was a Korean independence activist and a general of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Korean War, who later became a diplomat and politician in South Korea. Born in North Pyongan, he did his early schooling in China and Korea, and had a brief career as a teacher before his connections with the nascent Korean independence movement led to his imprisonment. He fled into exile in China in 1918, and served in the Kuomintang's National Revolutionary Army from 1926 to 1948, following which he moved to the newly independent South Korea to join the Republic of Korea Army. He commanded South Korea's I Corps during the first year of the Korean War, and was then sent to Taipei as South Korea's ambassador to the Republic of China, which by then had retreated to Taiwan. His assignment there ultimately lasted nine years. He returned to South Korea in 1960 following the April Revolution which ended the rule of Syngman Rhee, and served briefly as Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Park Chung-hee junta. He ran for the National Assembly, first unsuccessfully in 1960 and 1963, and was then elected in 1967 and became a major figure in the opposition New Democratic Party.
The Korean National Youth Association abbreviated as Jokcheong was a neo-fascist, extreme right-wing group founded on October 9, 1946 under the catchphrase 'national branch, national geography', and led by Lee Beom-seok. KNYA had an ideology that intersected fascism and resistance nationalism, which also embraced left-wing youth and was described as a "Third Way". KNYA's fascism was deeply related to Third-Worldism (제3세계주의), which rejected both First World 'capitalism' and Second World 'communism'.