At the beginning of 2010 a North Korean torpedo attack sinks a Southern warship: 46 sailors are killed. ibid.
Kim Jong-Il cultivated an unbelievable legend. ibid.
His mother dies giving birth to a still-born baby: Kim Jong-Il is only seven. ibid.
At the end of the ’90s North Korea experiences one of the worst famines in history. ibid.
North Korea has become the most dangerous country in the world. Driving this military machine is the young ruthless dictator Kim Jung-un. Whether he’s a mad man or a calculating genius, Kim Jung-un will do anything to stay in power. North Korea: Dark Secrets, History 2019
In 1948 the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was officially founded with 36-year-old Kim Il-sung as its leader. ibid.
At 53 Kim Jong-il took over his father’s position as leader of North Korea. ibid.
At the age of 27, Kim Jung-un, the third dictator of North Korea, was handed a legacy of abuse towards his country’s citizens. ibid.
270 surveillance agents … ‘Neighbours would spy on neighbours.’ ibid.
The entire country is essentially a criminal syndicate operating as an independent state. ibid.
North Korea the Black Market state: Spearheading these operations is the clandestine government agency known as Office 39. ibid.
North Korea is a huge drug cartel … North Korea’s drug trade generates hundreds of millions of dollars. ibid.
Throughout the 1990s North Korea was secretly mining raw uranium within their own borders. ibid.
North Korea: a highly militarised state dominated by one family for half a century. The product of a conflict reinforced by nuclear threat that still endures today. It began with the Korean War fought between 1950 and 1953. A war that left a deep ideological and physical division between North and South and reverberated across the world. Nearly 70 years on, this unresolved conflict continues to pose a serious threat to America and her allies. The Korean War was one of the bloodiest chapters in the country’s history. A civil war that nearly ignited World War III. It took the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers and millions of Koreans. Korea: The Never Ending War, BBC 2019
The 38th Parallel was simply a line on a map. It followed no physical features … ‘It was a 30-minute decision.’ ibid.
The Japanese defeat in World War II ended their occupation of Korea, a history narrated by the brutal subjugation of the Korean people. ibid.
He [Rhee] was elected President of South Korea in 1948. To consolidate his authority, Rhee crushed political dissent killing thousands of communist guerrillas. ibid.
Kim quickly solidified his power and amassed a formidable army. By 1949 Kim had burnished his image as supreme leader, creating the myth of the fearsome guerrilla fighter who single-handedly defeated the Japanese. ibid.
In May 1950 Kim travelled to China to meet Mao. By the summer of 1950 Kim Il-sung was ready to invade the South, assuring Mao he would be greeted as a liberator, and take the peninsula in a matter of days. ibid.
Atrocities were being committed on all sides. ibid.
‘All the high American officers had been heroes of World War II … These were people who were famous.’ ibid.
July 1953, the Forgotten War: ‘Most of us when we came back really felt like we had not accomplished much. The American people generally, most of ’em, really didn’t even know where we’d been.’ ibid. US soldier
The war was far from over. There was no official peace treaty. Thousands of POWs awaited repatriation. And continuing tensions forced President Eisenhower to commit thousands of troops along the border. The world had lost interest in events in Korea, but the luxury of forgetting the war was not possible for Koreans. ibid.
July 8, 1994: A God Dies – But His Dream Lives On: Kim Il-sung died. ibid.
North Korea: It was an extraordinary U-turn for a president who had just told his secretary of state that diplomacy was a waste of time. Trump Takes on the World III, BBC 2021
1950: Communist North Korean troops invaded South Korea. Messengers from Moscow II: East, BBC 1995
It was the Chinese who saved North Korea. ibid.