To avoid civil war, both Korea and Vietnam split in half, with pro-communists organizing a government in the North and anti-communists organizing a government in the South.
Korea had been part of the Japanese empire, but after World War II it fell to the Americans and the Soviets to decide what should be done with their enemy's imperial possessions. In August 1945, two young aides at the State Department divided the Korean peninsula in half along the 38th parallel.
The line was chosen by U.S. military planners at the Potsdam Conference (July 1945) near the end of World War II as an army boundary, north of which the U.S.S.R. was to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces in Korea and south of which the Americans were to accept the Japanese surrender.
During World War II the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to temporarily divide Korea at the 38th parallel in order to oversee the removal of Japanese forces. It soon became clear, however, that neither of the cold war antagonists would permit its Korea ally to be threatened by unification.
Japan fought wars to conquer Korea, but after WWII, Japan lost all power over it, after which the US and the Soviets divided it along the 38th parallel. Korea was split into North and South Korea when Japan was forced to surrender all of their colonies to the Soviets and the United States after losing WWII.
Before there was a South and North Korea, the peninsula was ruled as a dynasty known as Chosŏn, which existed for more than five centuries, until 1910. This period, during which an independent Korea had diplomatic relations with China and Japan, ended with imperial Japan's annexation of the peninsula.
Korean Empire (1897–1910)
As a result of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki was concluded between China and Japan. It stipulated the abolition of subordinate relationships Korea had with China, in which Korea was a client state of China since the Imo Incident in 1882.
Hostilities arose between the two countries in 1950, when North Korea, under its communist agenda, tried to annex South Korea in an attempt to unite the two into one independent nation. Three years after the war, Korean Armistice Agreement was formally signed.
Korean nationalists formally declared Korea's independence from the government of Japan on March 1, 1919.
South Korean units were as tough and professional as any in the United States Army or Marines, and came to be justly feared by the communists. More than 300,000 Korean troops passed through Vietnam at some point, and more than 5,000 were killed.
In the last days of the war, the U.S. proposed dividing the Korean peninsula into two occupation zones (a U.S. and Soviet one) with the 38th parallel as the dividing line. The Soviets accepted their proposal and agreed to divide Korea.
Much like in other Soviet, socialist, or Eastern Bloc countries, North Koreans can travel abroad with permission from the government.
The National Liberation Day of Korea is a public holiday celebrated annually on 15 August in both South and North Korea. It commemorates the day the United States and the Soviet Union liberated Korea from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule.
World War II devastated not just Japan, but the Korean Peninsula, and in 1945, the United States and the USSR captured the peninsula and ended Japanese rule there. Korea was divided into two occupation zones that were intended to be temporary.
Hur suggests: Hideyoshi targeted Korea because he thought his military forces would easily subjugate it; and Hideyoshi envisioned that such an easy military campaign would help him consolidate his fledgling regime poised to control a complex web of local power blocs in Japan.
South Korea first called North Korea its "main enemy" in 1995, a year after the North threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire." Similar rhetoric has been used repeatedly since then if tensions are heightened.
Although the war ended where it began, the United States and its allies did succeed in preventing communism from overtaking South Korea.
What were the factors that led the Chinese to decide that they had to enter the war on behalf of North Korea? It has been generally accepted in the west that the Chinese were motivated by a combination of Chinese xenophobic attitudes, security concerns, expansionist tendencies and the communist ideology.
In the Chinese language, the Korean Peninsula is usually called Cháoxiǎn Bàndǎo (simplified Chinese: 朝鲜半岛; traditional Chinese: 朝鮮半島) and in rare cases called Hán Bàndǎo (simplified Chinese: 韩半岛; traditional Chinese: 韓半島).
The name “Korea,” used by English speakers today, appears to have derived during the time of the Silk Road when the dynasty in Korea called itself Goryeo. The word was transliterated as “Cauli” in Italian and used by Marco Polo. The English words “Corea” and then “Korea” came from this transliteration.
Among other things, the Treaty of Shimonoseki that ended the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895 stipulated that China would relinquish suzerainty and influence over Korea, recognize Korea's full independence and autonomy, and end the tribute system which had linked China and Korea for many centuries.
The key Difference Between North and South Korea is that North Korea is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), with its capital Pyongyang.. In contrast, South Korea is the Republic of Korea (ROK) with its capital Seoul.
During the period of Japanese colonial rule, Korea was officially known as Chōsen (朝鮮), although the former name continued to be used internationally.
Concomitantly, North Korean reconstruction was assisted by "fraternal socialist nations:" the Soviet Union and China. In the years immediately following the war, North Korea's growth rate of total industrial output exceeded South Korea's and averaged 39% between 1953 and 1960.
In theory, the Koreans, as subjects of the Japanese emperor, enjoyed the same status as the Japanese, but in fact the Japanese government treated the Koreans as a conquered people. Until 1921 they were not allowed to publish their own newspapers or to organize political or intellectual groups.