The Korean War was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union while South Korea was supported by the United States and allied countries. The fighting ended with an armistice on 27 July 1953.
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and shares a land border with North Korea. The country's western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan. South Korea claims to be the sole legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. It has a population of 51.75 million, of which roughly half live in the Seoul Capital Area, the fourth most populous metropolitan area in the world. Other major cities include Incheon, Busan, and Daegu.
Korea was ruled as a part of the Empire of Japan from 1910 to 1945. Joseon, a tributary state of the Qing dynasty, had come into the Japanese sphere of influence with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876; a complex coalition of the Meiji government, military, and business officials began a process of integrating Korea's politics and economy with Japan. The Korean Empire, proclaimed in 1897, became a protectorate of Japan with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905; thereafter Japan ruled the country indirectly through the Japanese Resident-General of Korea. Japan formally annexed the Korean Empire with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, without the consent of the former Korean Emperor Gojong, the regent of the Emperor Sunjong. Upon its annexation, Japan declared that Korea would henceforth be officially named Chōsen. This name was recognized internationally until the end of Japanese colonial rule. The territory was administered by the Governor-General of Chōsen based in Keijō (Seoul).
The March 1st Movement, also known as the Sam-il (3-1) Movement, was a significant protest movement by Korean people that called for independence from Imperial Japan and a stop to the forced assimilation into Japanese culture. It is also sometimes referred to as the Man-se Demonstrations. It is remembered as one of the earliest and largest protest movements for Korean independence, and remembered as a catalyst for future independence activities. Thirty-three Korean cultural and religious leaders issued a proclamation, supported by thousands of students and civilians in Seoul. There were over 1000 demonstrations in many other cities. These were brutally suppressed, with Korean historian Park Eun-sik reporting about 7,500 killed and 16,000 wounded, and 46,000 arrested.
The Eighth Army is a U.S. field army which commands all United States Army forces in South Korea. It is headquartered at the Camp Humphreys in the Anjeong-ri of Pyeongtaek, South Korea. Eighth Army relocated its headquarters from Yongsan to Camp Humphreys in the summer of 2017. It is the only field army in the U.S. Army. It is responsible to United States Forces Korea and United States Army Pacific.
Paik Sun-yup was a South Korean military officer. Paik is best known for his service during the Korean War, for being the first four-star general in the history of the South Korean military, and for his service as a diplomat and statesman for the Republic of Korea.
North Korean defectors refer to North Koreans who have fled from the country in spite of legal punishment for political, ideological, religious, economic, moral, personal, or nutritional reasons after the division of Korea after the end of World War II and the Korean War. North Koreans flee to various countries, mostly South Korea and China. Alternative terms for such North Korean defectors in South Korea include "northern refugees" and "new settlers".
Diplomatic relations between South Korea and the United States commenced in 1950, when the United States helped establish the modern state of South Korea, also known as the Republic of Korea, and fought on its UN-sponsored side in the Korean War (1950–1953). During the subsequent four decades, South Korea experienced tremendous economic, political and military growth.
The Bridge at No Gun Ri is a non-fiction book about the killing of South Korean civilians by the U.S. military in July 1950, early in the Korean War. Published in 2001, it was written by Charles J. Hanley, Sang-hun Choe and Martha Mendoza, with researcher Randy Herschaft, the Associated Press (AP) journalists who wrote about the mass refugee killing in news reports that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism and 10 other major national and international journalism awards. The book looks in depth at the lives of both the villager victims and the young American soldiers who killed them, and analyzes various U.S. military policies including use of deadly force in dealing with the refugee crisis during the early days of the war.
So Far from the Bamboo Grove is a non-fiction written by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, a Japanese American writer. It was originally published by Beech Tree in April 1986.
Koreans in Vietnam is a community of Vietnam. It is a population of only the Korean expatriates along and some Vietnamese (people) citizens that have Korean ancestry. Most of these people (them) are expatriates in Vietnam in 21st century. The population initially came in a military capacity, fighting on both sides of the Vietnam War. After the end of the war, there was little Korean migration or tourism in Vietnam, until the rise of the South Korean economy and the decline of the North resulted in an influx of South Korean investors and North Korean defectors, as well as South Korean men seeking Vietnamese wives. However, Vietnamese women experience high levels of domestic violence and abuse due to the difficulties of intercultural marriage.
Anti-American sentiments in Korea began with the earliest contact between the two nations and continued after the division of Korea. In both North Korea and South Korea, anti-Americanism after the Korean War has focused on the presence and behavior of American military personnel (USFK), aggravated especially by high-profile crimes by U.S. service members, with various crimes including rape and assault, among others. The 2002 Yangju highway incident especially ignited Anti-American passions. Anti-American sentiments have served as catalysts for protests such as the Daechuri Protest, which challenged the expansion of the U.S military base Camp Humphreys. The ongoing U.S. military presence in South Korea, especially at Yongsan Garrison in central Seoul, remains a contentious issue. However, 74% of South Koreans have a favorable view of the U.S., making South Korea one of the most pro-American countries in the world.
Charles King Armstrong is an American historian of North Korea. From 2005 to 2020, he worked as the Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies at Columbia University, spending his last year on sabbatical after the university's determination that he had committed extensive plagiarism. Armstrong's works dealt with revolutions, cultures of socialism, architectural history, and diplomatic history in the contexts of East Asia and modern Korea, with a focus on North Korea.
Choe Sang-Hun is a Pulitzer Prize-winning South Korean journalist and Seoul Bureau Chief for The New York Times.
The No Gun Ri massacre occurred on July 26–29, 1950, early in the Korean War, when an undetermined number of South Korean refugees were killed in a U.S. air attack and by small- and heavy-weapons fire of the American 7th Cavalry Regiment at a railroad bridge near the village of Nogeun-ri, 100 miles (160 km) southeast of Seoul. In 2005, a South Korean government inquest certified the names of 163 dead or missing and 55 wounded, and added that many other victims' names were not reported. The No Gun Ri Peace Foundation estimated in 2011 that 250–300 were killed, mostly women and children.
John Joseph Muccio was an Italian-born American diplomat who served as the first United States Ambassador to Korea following the establishment of the Republic of Korea in 1948. His title was "Special Representative of the President" in 1948–49 and Ambassador from 1949 through 1952. During his tenure, the Korean War began. In 1950, before the war broke out, he negotiated the first agreement on American military aid to Korea, worth $10 million at that time. Later that year, in testimony to Congress, Muccio called for increased assistance to Seoul and warned that Communist forces were a growing threat north of the 38th parallel.
The following events occurred in July 1950:
Walter Carl Clemens, Jr. is an American political scientist best known for advancing complexity science as an approach to the study of international relations and comparative politics. He has been active in the analysis of complexity science, arms control and disarmament, and U.S. relations with communist and post-communist countries. Since 2008, he has been a regular contributor to Global Asia, the quarterly journal of the East Asia Foundation. He has authored numerous books, articles, and editorials, and is currently a Professor Emeritus at Boston University and an Associate at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.
Sheila Miyoshi Jager is an American historian. She is a Professor of East Asian Studies at Oberlin College, author of two books on Korea, co-editor of a third book on Asian nations in the post-Cold War era, and a forthcoming book on great power competition in northeast Asia at the turn of the 19th-20th century. She is a well-known historian of Korea and East Asia.
Charles J. Hanley is an American journalist and author who reported for the Associated Press (AP) for over 40 years, chiefly as a roving international correspondent. In 2000, he and two AP colleagues won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for their work confirming the U.S. military’s massacre of South Korean refugees at No Gun Ri during the Korean War.
