Korea+-+Modern+history

The Modern history of Korea starts when Korea opens its ports to Western countries as Japan and China opens theirs.

In 19th centry, China and Japan opened their countries to western culture. After they assimilated Western civilization, they developed extremely fast. Korea started receive western culture in late 19th centery. there was a new religion called Dong-Hak in Korea. This religion gathered people to revolutionize Korea against feudalism. However, most of people were common people. Peple who had power did not want to change the ruling system. Therefore, they asked Qing dynasty to help them when Dong-Hak rebelled against the government. After failure of the Dong-Hak rebellion, Japan started to invade Korea to colonize. During the proccess of colonization, Japan invade Korea's economics by taking the mineral concession, the right of train construction, etc. Japan's economic invasion destroyed the foundation of independence.

Despite of deteriorated situation, Koreans kept fighting against Japanese both inside and outside of the country. While they were doing risistance campaign to Japan, Last King of Korean Empire, Gojong, died in 1919. Death of King Gojong sparked the March First Independence Movement of 1919.

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In August 15, 1945, Korea become independent. Since United States dropped atomic bombs to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan could not sustain the war. Thus Japan surrendered and gave up all colonies. After Japan was gone from the Korea, the peninsula was in chaos. Because Korea did not become independent with its power, it did not have any rights to participate in the foreign diplomacy situation. World powerful contries such as US, Russia, and England decided to do trusteeship on Korea. Thus, Russia and US planned to control North Korea and South Korea for 5 years. However, UN declares official South Korea government in exactly 3 year later, August 15, 1948.


 * Trusteeship is that Administration of a territory by a country or countries so commissioned by the United Nations

2 years later, North Korea invaded South Korea without declaration of the war to unite the peninsula and expand communism. South Korea did not prepare for the war; therefore, the capital, Seoul, is conquered in 3 days, and everyone evacuated toward Pusan which is located at the end of the peninsula. To save South Korea, US dispathced general Douglas MacArthur who leads Japan to collapse. MacArthur did not attack from the south. He attacked from side of peninsula. This battle is called Battle of Incheon Code name : Operation Chromite. He recovered important place frist such as airport, and then he finally won back Seoul. With support of United Nation, South Korea pushed North Korea up to Yalu River; however, because of support of China, allied forces retreated to near latitude 38 line. Since there is no more product, North Korea and South Korea decide to suspended hostilities in July, 1953.



Total 776.360, 178,569 died, 555,022 injured, and 42,769 missing. media type="youtube" key="Pb8IhwKp-Zk&hl=en" height="355" width="425"

After the Korean War, First president tried to keep the govenrment in his hand; therefore he decided to do rigged election. When students and citizens found out the rigged election, they kicked out the first president by force in April 19th 1960. After he was kicked out, Korea was in hunger, so this situation leaded to military coup.

Korea developed the most during military govenrment. After the military coup, fifth president, Jung Hee Park, took the power. Korea could not develop this much if he was not a president at that time. He encouraged citizens to participate New Town Campaign which is a movement for developing farming and fishing communities, and he saved people from poverty with his new economic plan. If German has the miracle of Rhine river, then Korea has the miracle of Han river. Despite of his work, the long-term seizure of power by him made side effect. Since he ruled too long time, many people went against him. As a result, he was assassinate, but until now, people do not know who is in the back of assassinator.



Korea starts to announce the name to the world by 24th Seoul Olympic. With holding the Olympic, Korea showed the ecominical improvement to the world.

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Korea was developing without a hitch. However, Korea faced terrible economic crisis in 1997. This economic crisis started from Thailand, and it affects to other Asian countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea. As a result of the economic crisis many Korean companies were bankrupt, stocks were quoted low, and Korea had huge trade deficit. Thus, Korea lended a lot of money from International Monetary Fund, but it could not pay back on time. Thus, debt kept increasing, and Korea is almost bankrupt. To solve this problem, all people gathered gold to refund the debt. Collected gold cost 21 hundered 30 million dollars.





4 years after the economic crisis, Korea could hold 2002 World Cup. With holding the World Cup, Korea could prove that it completely overcame the economic crisis, and had public relation about Korea to the World. Supporting squad of Korea National Scoccer team, Red Devils, became very famous to the world. media type="youtube" key="HliB9VSxU28&hl=en" height="355" width="425"