Hourly History - Korean War

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The Korean War began in 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea in an attempt to reunite the two halves of the peninsula under one communist government. It was not a civil war, and neither was it simply a war to gain more land, since the two sides shared a common past, and in some ways, a common identity.

The Korean War lasted just over three years, from June 1950 through July 1953, but it was one of the most important early events of the Cold War. This conflict, between the United States and the Soviet Union, encompassed the entire world in an ideological battle between two opposing economic systems communism and capitalism and their accompanying cultures and ways of life.

The United States and the Soviet Union involved themselves directly or indirectly in every conflict between their two respective economic systems. Therefore, the Korean War was not just a battle over sovereignty of the Korean Peninsula. Events in this small corner of the globe thus reverberated widely; for three years, the eyes of the world were on Korea. Within months, it would involve the United Nations, the United States, China, and the Soviet Union. Events on the small peninsula bordering China threatened to plunge the world back into another world war.

By the time the war ended, nothing - and everything - had changed. The imaginary line dividing North and South Korea remained in the same place. However, the fates of Koreans were forever altered, and the course of the Cold War would not be the same again either.

Today, we know Korea as two distinct places: communist North Korea, run by a controversial dictator, and free South Korea, a small, supposedly heavily urban country focused on technology and industry. However, it was not until 1945 that Korea was split into two separate states run by two separate governments. Korea has a long history before that time.

Korea is a peninsula. It shares its northern border with China and is surrounded on all other sides by sea: The Yellow Sea on the west and the Sea of Japan on the east. Southern Japan is located off of Koreas south-eastern coast.

During its early history (as early as the 1st or 2nd centuries CE), three separate kingdoms existed on the Korean Peninsula. As the centuries wore on, these three kingdoms warred with each other more and more. Eventually, the kingdoms were united, though continued warfare and changes in power, combined with spotty survival of records, make this early history of Korea difficult. One of the three Korean kingdoms was called Goguryeolater Goryeo and provides us the etymological root of the name Korea.

It was not only the Three Kingdoms that initiated warfare and caused instability on the Korean peninsula during its early history. China, too, wished to control Korea. Several Chinese rulers from a number of dynasties launched warfare in Korea, including the Mongol Dynasty, which eventually conquered the peninsula in the 13th century.

In consideration of Koreas very long history, Mongol rule did not last very long. By the end of the 14th century, the Mongols had collapsed, and despite ensuing instability in Korea, the Kingdom of Joseon was established by the military leader Yi Seonggye. This kingdom existed for more than five hundred years.

Europeans began trading in Asia and the Far East, via the overland Silk Road spice routes, while much of this turbulence with China was going on. However, European colonization of Korea would not begin until later. By the nineteenth century, when Europeans were looking to extend their eastern empires beyond India, Korea had a reputation for being isolationist. This was largely in response to repeated attempts, particularly by the Chinese, to overtake it. As a result, Korea had earned the nickname the Hermit Kingdom.

Japan was also traditionally isolationist. The allegory goes that American Navy Commodore Matthew Perry sailed to Japan and demanded she open herself to trade, and she complied. In reality, the arrival of Commodore Perry was just the last in a series of events that prompted Japan to open its ports to foreign trade and to modernize in order to prevent conquest.

Korea did not read these signs the same way, at least not initially. True to their nickname, they remained closed off to the rest of the world until early in the twentieth century. At that point, they finally decided to attempt to modernize, but it was too late. In 1910, fresh from their 1905 victory over Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, Japan conquered Korea with little trouble. Like many European countries had been doing for hundreds of years, Japan was also working on building an empire. While European conquest was usually tolerated and even celebrated, this was not the case with Japan: much racism existed against the Japanese (as with all Asians). In the years during and surrounding World War II this would be a serious issue; for Korea, it would impact the post-war world and the causes of the Korean War.

Japanese rule was anything but peaceful. Despite western racism against them, they were also racist against other Asians, including Koreans. Japan saw Korea as an inferior nation of inferior people. Millions of Koreans were forced to labor to benefit Japan in virtual slavery; hundreds of thousands of women and very young girls were forced to become sex slaves for the Japanese (especially the military); tens of thousands of men and boys were forced to serve in the Japanese military, often in the most dangerous positions. Finally, more than four hundred thousand Koreans (at least) were killed as a direct result of the Japanese occupation.

By 1945, when World War II ended, Korea and Koreans had faced decadeseven centuriesof hardship, discrimination, and violence. They were ready for peace. However, the end of the war would not set them up for this; in less than a decade, the tiny peninsula would once again be embroiled in war.

The end of World War II brought both relief and uncertainty to Korea. On the one hand, the decades of suffering under Japan were over. The allies demanded unconditional surrender from Japan, and immediately went about disassembling its empire.

On the other hand, though, what this new peace would look like was not clear. Partially out of fear of instability, partially because of their own selfish interests, and partially because of racism, the Allies did not want to grant independence to the far-flung territories of the conquered nations.

This is not to say that Korea did not try. In August through September 1945, Koreans formed the Peoples Republic of Korea. This was a turbulent time, as the U.S. and the Soviet Union were working on securing the peninsula by ousting the last vestiges of the Japanese military and attempting to agree on how the peninsula would be governed. Despite their desire to establish home-rule, the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) rejected the new government formed by Koreans, in part because they suspected that it harbored communist sympathies.