High school students demonstrated in Seoul at the funeral of the last Korean Emperor, Sunjong, declaring for independence from Japan.
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Showing posts with label Korea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Korea. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 10, 2026
Saturday, June 6, 2026
Sunday, March 1, 2026
Friday, March 1, 1946. Things that almost were.
Kim Il Sung, was saved from an assassination attempt when Red Army officer Y.T. Novichenko caught a hand grenade thrown at him.
Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu, was planned to commence on this day.
Bombshell actress Lana Wood, sister of Natalie Wood, was born.
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Thursday, February 28, 1946. Ho Chi Minh asks Truman for help.
Labels: 1930s, 1938, 1939, 1940s, 1946, Franklin Roosevelt, French Indochina, French Indochinese War, Harry S. Truman, Ho Chi Minh, Hungary, Vietnam
Thursday, February 26, 2026
Saturday, February 26, 1876. The Japan Korea Treaty of Amity.
Japan and Korean signed the Japan Korea Treaty of Amity, formally ending Korea's status as a tributary state of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, but giving Japan special rights in an independent Korea.
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Monday, February 15, 1876. Texas adopts its current constitution.
Monday, December 29, 2025
Saturday, December 29, 1945. Korean protests on US decision.
Korean civilians attacked U.S. soldiers in Seoul in protests of a U.S. decision two days prior to wait five years before granting the country independence.
It would in fact come quicker than that, with South Korea becoming independent in 1948. Originally, the entire peninsula was to have been part of the new republic, but the post war separation into two occupied halves kept that from coming about. U.S. occupation of South Korea would end at that time.
The period from 1945 to 1950 in South Korean history is not looked at much, but it was marked by strife, including what would become a hard fought guerilla war between the newly formed Republic of Korea and Communist guerillas.
Hitler's will and marriage certificate were found.
And the Coast Guard was going back to the Treasury, which is where it should be.
Last edition:
Friday, December 28, 1945. War Brides. Yank ends.
Friday, October 10, 2025
Wednesday, October 10, 1945. Uncle Mike: "The World's Worst Series".
October 10, 1945: "The World's Worst Series"
The Detroit Tigers won the World Series, beating the Chicago Cubs 9 to 3 in game four.
The Chongqing Negotiations (Chinese: 重慶談判) came to an end.
The negotiations were between the Nationalist and the Communists and marked a resumption, after a twenty year gap, of efforts between the two contesting sides to resolve their differences. Both sides signed the Double Tenth Agreement at the end.
This day would be the last meeting between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong.
The Double Tenth Agreement provided:
- The CCP recognized the KMT as the legitimate ruling party of China
- All political parties within China were legalized.
- The KMT and CCP would end the war between them.
- The formation of a political consultative conference to discuss plans for state building with guaranteed representation of all political parties.
- The abolition of CCP and KMT secret services.
- Holding a general election to determine the next ruling party of China.
- Putting an end to political tutelage within China.
Neither side really fully intended to honor the treaty and it is clear that the Communists did not.
The British completed the reoccupation of the Andaman Islands.
The Allied Control Council abolished the Nazi Party.
The Communist Party of Korea was founded, unfortunately.
Joseph Darnand, a French hero of the Great War, far right politician between the wars to the point of belonging to the La Cagoule terrorist organization, decorated French soldier again upon the German invasion of 1940 only to form the collaborationist militia, Service d'ordre légionnaire (SOL) and become a member of the SS, was executed. He was 48.
CBS successfully conducted an experiment in color television.
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Friday, October 5, 1945. Hollywood Black Friday.
Friday, September 19, 2025
Wednesday, September 19, 1945. Kim Il Sung returns to Korea.
Kim Il Sung arrived at Port Wonsan and began to organize the Communist Party of Korea.
Kim was born into a Presbyterian family. He fled to Manchuria in 1920 after being involved in anti Japanese activities. He was in his mid teens at the time and then attended military schools. It was while he was in China that he became interested in Communism. He was a figure in the Chinese Communist Army during the pre World War Two Chinese Civil War and then again during World War Two, crossing into the Soviet Union in 1940. He then joined the Red Army. The Soviets chose Kim in order to have a Communist figure to introduce into Korea even though he was poorly educated and by 1940 his Korean was very poor. His early life is not very well known.
Navy aircraft over Inchon, September 1945.
British and French troops complete the suppression of the Việt Minh in Saigon.
New Zealand ratified the UN Charter.
William Joyce was sentenced to death.
The British announced that Indian would shortly be granted home rule.
Shirley temple married Sgt. John Agar, a fellow actor. She was 17 years old. Agar was 25.
The marriage wouldn't last.
Agar had a real drinking problem, although he amazingly lived to age 81. Apparently he's associated with B science fiction movies, but I always associate him with John Ford westerns. He also appeared in The Sands of Iwo Jima. He met Shirley Temple in 1943 when he escorted her to a Hollywood party. She would only have been 15 years old at the time.
His second marriage lasted 49 years.
He had a remarkably long film career, although many of his roles were very minor. In World War Two he served first in the Navy, joining in 1941 and then in the Army Air Force as a physical instructor. He was discharged from the Navy due to an ear infection.
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Shirley Temple in 1943.
Temple is a film legend, of course, but had trouble transitioning from being a child actress to adult film roles, even though the ones she appeared in showed her to be a very talented adult actress. This would lead to an early retirement from film, something that was hastened by a negative reaction to being propositioned by MGM figure Arthur Freed and Louis B. Mayer on the same day, when she was only 12, leading to her returning to Fox from MGM without much success. She later became the US Ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the Reagan Administration.
Last edition:
Tuesday, September 18, 1945. The first desegregation student protest.
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Sunday, August 12, 1945. War, ripples of war, and impacts of war.
Fr. Karl Leisner died of tuberculosis after having been imprisoned in Dachau. He was beatified in 1996.
The number of German Catholic Priests that resisted the Nazis is really not appreciated. They were not alone, of course Evangelicals (Lutherans) did as well, but nonetheless their numbers are remarkable, and in some instance their resistances to the Nazis is astounding.
The Red Army entered Korea.
Chinese-American headquarters canceled operations against Fort Bayard, Hong Kong and Canton, in light of the imminent Japanese surrender.
American bombing raids over Japan, however, continued.
The USS Pennsylvania was damaged by an attack from a Japanese torpedo bomber off the island of Okinawa.
A Japanese submarine sank the USS Thomas F. Nickel and the landing craft Oak Hill.
The US released the Smyth Report.
Russian DPs (Displaced Persons) began the trip home to an uncertain future.
"1500 Russian displaced nationals were taken from the D.P. center, Caserne De Cavalerie in Charleroi, Belgium, and sent by train to Russian territory in Germany. 12 August, 1945. They took long strides, singing most of the way, as they turn into the depot at Charleroi. This is the last of the D.P.'s to leave France and Belgium. Photographer: Pfc. Stedman"
The victims of Nazi horrors, they were regarded as suspect by the Soviet Union as the USSR knew that they had been exposed to the West, and hence to the fallacy of the Communist system. Given a choice, most would likely have refused repatriation.
Their fate, while grim, mirrored the unhappy situation of millions in Europe. Many were being repatriated to nations that would repress them and to which they did not wish to return. Many found themselves in countries whose post war political system was foisted upon them by the USSR. Others simply had no home. The war was over, but the impacts of the war far from over.
Only the US was in a really good place, culturally and economically, which would form its economic and political reality into the early 21st Century, forming a sense of entitlement and dissociation from reality whose impact is still yet to be determined.
Last edition:
Saturday, August 11, 1945. The US rejects the Japanese attempt at surrender and the Soviets invade South Sakhalin. And stuff that doesn't neatly fit into accepted history.
Sunday, June 8, 2025
Friday, June 8, 1945. Battle of Porton Plantation
The Battle of Porton Plantation began on Bougainville Island between Australian, New Zealand and Japanese troops.
The Ashigara was torpedoed and sunk in the Bangka Strait by the British submarine Trenchant.
The US 145th Infantry Regiment took Solano and advanced as far as Bagabag, towards the Cagayan valley in the Philippines.
The French poet Robert Desnos died at Theresienstadt of typhoid.
German World War Two official in Czechoslovakia Karl Hanke, age 41, was killed by Czech partisans while trying to escape captivity.
Undersecretary of State Joseph Grew denied reports that Russia would be given Korea among other states in exchange for its entry into the Pacific war.
Last edition:
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Friday. March 26, 1875. Violence in Texas.
Syngman Rhee or Lee Seungman (이승만) was born in Whanghai Province to Rhee Kyong-sun, a member of the aristocratic Yangban family.
Elected by the South Korean parliament in 1948, he'd assume dictatorial powers and govern the country until forced out of the country following student unrest in 1960. He lived in Hawaii thereafter until his death in 1965.
In certain ways, Rhee symbolized a strategy that both Democratic and Republican administrations employed during the Cold War of supporting right wing autocrats in the belief that their countries would evolve into democracies. In the case of South Korea, they were right.
Last edition:
Saturday, December 28, 2024
Today In Wyoming's History: Sidebar: Wyoming and the Korean War
Today In Wyoming's History: Sidebar: Wyoming and the Korean War:
Sidebar: Wyoming and the Korean War
The Korean War is something that most Wyomingites don't particularly associate with our state, but the war did have a noticeable impact on the state, and Korea has been in the news a lot recently, so now might be a good time to take a look at it.
Part of the reason that we don't think much of the Korean War and Wyoming, is that we don't think much about the Korean War at all. The Korean War is one of several wars that have been tagged "forgotten wars" and, in the case of Korea, it's really true. Perhaps that was inevitable, coming between World War Two and the Vietnam War, as it did.
Wyoming's role in the Korean War is tied closely to the the decline in the Army's conventional war fighting abilities that followed World War Two. The largest war ever fought, World War Two was the largest conventional conflict of all time but it ended with the use of two nuclear weapons. Given that, the immediate assumption by the American military was that the age of conventional warfare had ended and that any future war, of any kind, would be a nuclear war. The Army was allowed to atrophy as a result. Between 1945, when World War Two ended, and 1950, when the Korean War started, the Army's training in conventional warfare dramatically declined.
An end to conventional warfare turned out to be a massively erroneous assumption, and the place we learned that was in Korea.
That the US would fight a war in Korea was something that, moreover, seemed an impossibility in 1945, when events took us there for the first time in the 20th Century. The US had actually fought in Korea once before, but in the 19th Century, oddly enough, when the Marine Corps landed briefly in Korean in an obscure punitive expedition. It was World War Two, however that brought the US back onto the Korean Peninsula, but only due to the end of the war.
Korea itself had been a Japanese possession since 1910, when the Japanese simply made a fact out of what had been the case following the Russo Japanese War. Korea had been more or less independent prior to that, but heavily influenced by its much more powerful neighbors. The Russo Japanese War effectively ended Korean independence in favor of the Japanese. The Japanese dominance was not a happy thing for the Koreans. Korea remained a Japanese possession up until after World War Two, when it was jointly occupied by the United States and the Soviet Union, splitting the country in half. The US had no intention to remain there but the original concept of uniting the country in a democratic process fell apart, and the Soviets and the US left with the country divided. The US had weakly armed the South and failed to provide it with heavy weapons. The North, on the other hand, was heavily armed and trained by the Soviets, who left the North with the means, and likely the plan, on how to unite the peninsula by force. In 1950, North Korea invaded the South with a well equipped and well trained Army. They faced a poorly trained South Korean Army.
Soon after that they, quite frankly, faced a poorly trained American Army. The US hadn't really given much thought to South Korea after leaving it, but the fall of China, followed by the Berlin Blockade, followed by shocking early revelations about Soviet espionage inside the US, followed by the development of the Soviet bomb, suddenly refocused attention on a country that now seemed to be a dagger aimed at Japan. President Truman made the immediate decision to send the U.S. Army into South Korea to turn the North Koreans back.
That Army, however, wasn't the same Army the US had in 1945 after the defeat of Germany and Japan. After VJ Day the U.S. had rapidly demobilized. Moreover, convinced that all future wars would be nuclear in nature, the U.S. had let the Army deteriorate markedly. It was poorly trained and not all that well equipped in some ways.
The intervention in South Korea required the call up of numerous Army National Guard units, and Wyoming's 300th Armored Field Artillery was one of them. Deployed in February 1951, the unit made up of young recruits from northern Wyoming and World War Two veterans proved to be a very effective one. It achieved a fairly unique status in May 1951 at Soyang with the unit directly engaged advancing enemy infantry, a very rare event in modern combat and a risky one at any time. The unit came out of the Korean War with Presidential and Congressional Unit Citations in honor of its fine performance in the war. The individual Guardsmen of the 300th AFA largely came home after completing a combat tour, at a little over a year, but the called up unit remained in service throughout the war. Other Wyoming Army National Guard units were also called up in this time, but only the 300th AFA was sent to the Korean War.
The Air National Guard's 187th Fighter Bomber Squadron from Wyoming was called up. The new Air Guard saw combat service for the first time in the Korean War. Nine Wyoming F51 pilots were lost serving in the unit during the war.
Of course, many Wyomingites served in the war by volunteering for military service, or by being conscripted during the war. Like earlier wars, Wyomingites volunteered in high numbers.
Official painting of the Wyoming Army National Guard depicting Wyoming's 300th AFA in action.
Part of the reason that we don't think much of the Korean War and Wyoming, is that we don't think much about the Korean War at all. The Korean War is one of several wars that have been tagged "forgotten wars" and, in the case of Korea, it's really true. Perhaps that was inevitable, coming between World War Two and the Vietnam War, as it did.
Wyoming's role in the Korean War is tied closely to the the decline in the Army's conventional war fighting abilities that followed World War Two. The largest war ever fought, World War Two was the largest conventional conflict of all time but it ended with the use of two nuclear weapons. Given that, the immediate assumption by the American military was that the age of conventional warfare had ended and that any future war, of any kind, would be a nuclear war. The Army was allowed to atrophy as a result. Between 1945, when World War Two ended, and 1950, when the Korean War started, the Army's training in conventional warfare dramatically declined.
An end to conventional warfare turned out to be a massively erroneous assumption, and the place we learned that was in Korea.
That the US would fight a war in Korea was something that, moreover, seemed an impossibility in 1945, when events took us there for the first time in the 20th Century. The US had actually fought in Korea once before, but in the 19th Century, oddly enough, when the Marine Corps landed briefly in Korean in an obscure punitive expedition. It was World War Two, however that brought the US back onto the Korean Peninsula, but only due to the end of the war.
Korea itself had been a Japanese possession since 1910, when the Japanese simply made a fact out of what had been the case following the Russo Japanese War. Korea had been more or less independent prior to that, but heavily influenced by its much more powerful neighbors. The Russo Japanese War effectively ended Korean independence in favor of the Japanese. The Japanese dominance was not a happy thing for the Koreans. Korea remained a Japanese possession up until after World War Two, when it was jointly occupied by the United States and the Soviet Union, splitting the country in half. The US had no intention to remain there but the original concept of uniting the country in a democratic process fell apart, and the Soviets and the US left with the country divided. The US had weakly armed the South and failed to provide it with heavy weapons. The North, on the other hand, was heavily armed and trained by the Soviets, who left the North with the means, and likely the plan, on how to unite the peninsula by force. In 1950, North Korea invaded the South with a well equipped and well trained Army. They faced a poorly trained South Korean Army.
Soon after that they, quite frankly, faced a poorly trained American Army. The US hadn't really given much thought to South Korea after leaving it, but the fall of China, followed by the Berlin Blockade, followed by shocking early revelations about Soviet espionage inside the US, followed by the development of the Soviet bomb, suddenly refocused attention on a country that now seemed to be a dagger aimed at Japan. President Truman made the immediate decision to send the U.S. Army into South Korea to turn the North Koreans back.
That Army, however, wasn't the same Army the US had in 1945 after the defeat of Germany and Japan. After VJ Day the U.S. had rapidly demobilized. Moreover, convinced that all future wars would be nuclear in nature, the U.S. had let the Army deteriorate markedly. It was poorly trained and not all that well equipped in some ways.
The intervention in South Korea required the call up of numerous Army National Guard units, and Wyoming's 300th Armored Field Artillery was one of them. Deployed in February 1951, the unit made up of young recruits from northern Wyoming and World War Two veterans proved to be a very effective one. It achieved a fairly unique status in May 1951 at Soyang with the unit directly engaged advancing enemy infantry, a very rare event in modern combat and a risky one at any time. The unit came out of the Korean War with Presidential and Congressional Unit Citations in honor of its fine performance in the war. The individual Guardsmen of the 300th AFA largely came home after completing a combat tour, at a little over a year, but the called up unit remained in service throughout the war. Other Wyoming Army National Guard units were also called up in this time, but only the 300th AFA was sent to the Korean War.
The Air National Guard's 187th Fighter Bomber Squadron from Wyoming was called up. The new Air Guard saw combat service for the first time in the Korean War. Nine Wyoming F51 pilots were lost serving in the unit during the war.
Of course, many Wyomingites served in the war by volunteering for military service, or by being conscripted during the war. Like earlier wars, Wyomingites volunteered in high numbers.
Wednesday, December 4, 2024
An open letter to South Korean Parliamentarians on the occasion of their heroism.
Dear South Korean Parliamentarians,
Thank you for standing up for democracy, unlike those in a major party in another nation I could name.
Truly, you are heroes.
Yeoman
존경하는 대한민국 국회의원 여러분
제가 언급할 수 있는 다른 나라의 주요 정당과 달리 민주주의를 옹호해 주셔서 감사합니다.
진실로 여러분은 영웅입니다.
자작농
Sunday, November 24, 2024
Monday, November 24, 1924. Australopithecus africanus
The first remains of an Australopithecus africanus were found in a quarry in South Africa. The skull was that of a child, perhaps five or six years of age, who was killed by a bird of prey.
The anti Japanese Korean independence organization, and military government the Righteous Government (정의부) organized in West Jiandao, Korea.
Duan Qirui (Tuan Ch'i-jui) was installed by General Feng Yuxiang as the acting President of the Republic of China.
Last edition:
Friday, November 21, 1924. Florence Harding passes.
Friday, November 8, 2024
Saturday, November 8, 1924. Declaration from Honolulu.
Syngman Rhee announced plans for a new Korean independence movement from Honolulu.
Last edition:
Friday, November 7, 1924. A balanced budget.
Thursday, August 15, 2024
Thursday August 15, 1974. An attempted South Korean assassination.
South Korean, Japanese born, North Korean sympathizer, Mun Se-gwang attempted to assassinate South Korea's President Park Chung Hee but instead killed Yuk Young-soo, age 48, Park's wife.
In the ensewin gun battle Jang Bong-hwa, a member of a high school choir performing at the event, was killed.
After the shooting and Mun's arrest, President Park resumed his address, which hardly seems appropriate.
Park composed the following poem in her honor:
Like a Long Magnolia Blossom Bending to the Wind
Under heavy silence
Of a house in mourning
Only the cry of cicadas
Maam, maam, maam
Seem to long for you who is now gone
Under the August sun
The Indian Lilacs turn crimson
As if trying to heal the wounds of the mind
My wife has departed alone
Only I am left
Like a lone magnolia blossom bending to the wind
Where can I appeal
The sadness of a broken heart
Last edition:
Wednesday, August 14, 1974. Second Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
Sunday, May 19, 2024
Monday, May 19, 1924. Bonuses and Tick Fever.
Congress overrode President Coolidge's veto of the World War Adjusted Compensation Act.
I can't say that act was a big surprise.
An image was transmitted by telephone line for the first time. Over two hours, 15 photographic images were transmitted by AT&T from Cleveland to New York City.
Korean nationalist tried, but failed, to assassinate Japanese Governor General of Korea Makoto Saito. The attempt was a clumsy one, involving firing on Saito's boat from the Chinese side of the Yalu.
Dr. Roscoe R. Spencer, after giving himself some time prior his own vaccine for Rocky Mountain Tick Fever, injected himself with "a large does of mashed wood ticks" and did not die, proving that the vaccine worked.
Today it would inspire a bunch of countervailing extreme theories.
Turkey and the United Kingdom failed to reach an accord on the Mosul Question, i.e., who owned the region.
The Royal Australian Air Force completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the continent with a Fairey IIID.
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