Click2History - Korean War - Chapter 2 - Korea Divided

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>KOREAN WAR</p> <p><font size="4">CHAPTER 2 - KOREA DIVIDED</font></b></p> </div> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">Japan had <a href="http://www.intellnet.org/resources/korean_war_docs/1910.htm" target="_blank"><b>annexed</b></a> Korea in 1910 and <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~easc/pages/easc/curriculum/korea/1995/general/hand7_1.htm" target="_blank"><b>ruled</b></a> it <a href="http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/g340000/g347701.jpg" target="_blank"><b>until</b></a> the <a href="http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/g390000/g391464.jpg" target="_blank"><b>end</b></a> of WWII. When Japan lost the war, Korea (like Germany) would be divided into two areas.</p> <p>At the July-August 1945 <a href="http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/k14000/k14539.jpg" target="_blank"><b>Potsdam</b></a> Conference (where Truman, Stalin, Churchill and Atlee <a href="http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/ac00001/ac01861.jpg" target="_blank"><b>discussed</b></a> how various territories would be split up and operate at the end of the war in the Pacific), the three powers agreed Korea would be <a href="http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/korean_peninsula.gif" target="_blank"><b>divided</b></a> roughly <a href="http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/brochures/KW-Outbreak/map1.gif" target="_blank"><b>in half</b></a> - at the 38th Parallel. The Soviet Union, and its allies, would operate in the North while the US, and its allies, would operate in the South.</p> <p>In August, 1947, China, Great Britain and the US recommended a plan to reunify the country, but the Soviet Union (still under Stalin’s control) refused to cooperate. National elections, supervised by the United Nations, took place in May of 1948, but the North Koreans neither took part in, nor recognized the results of, the election. The South Koreans chose representatives for the National Assembly of the new Republic of Korea. By July of 1948, the country had a new constitution and the United States Army Forces in Korea ceased to have any governmental authority in the country.</p> <p>North Korea, meanwhile, formed its own government: The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. <a href="http://lookinside-images.amazon.com/Qffs+v35leofjxhpj+LmhyXBNEM5uwDc5uW1jhPWQpqksXFFirYVcge1TAQpH2g3c4XQISlC9+8=" target="_blank"><b>Kim Il Sung</b></a> was its <a href="http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/kimilsun.htm" target="_blank"><b>leader</b></a> and his government claimed jurisdiction over the entire Korean Peninsula (including the South).</p> </div> <p align="center"><font size="2"><a href="korean_war_ch1.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>   <a href="korean_war_ch3.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>