August, 1945 the evenly divided line became official. The Soviet Union and the US agreed to divide Korea at this drawn line, more commonly known as the 38th parallel.
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The Division of Korea began at the end of World War II in 1945. With the declaration of the Soviet-Japanese War, the Soviet Union occupied the north of Korea, and the United States occupied the south, with the boundary between their zones being the 38th parallel.
The U.S. wanted the entire peninsula to be democratic and capitalist while the Soviets wanted it all to be communist. North and South Korea, Divided at the 38th Parallel. US Central Intelligence Agency At the end of the war, Koreans were united in joy and hope that they were going to be a single independent country.
Since the war, Korea has remained divided along the DMZ. North and South have remained in a state of conflict, with the opposing regimes both claiming to be the legitimate government of the whole country.
A Unified Korea. For centuries before the division, the peninsula was a single, unified Korea, ruled by generations of dynastic kingdoms. Occupied by Japan after the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and formally annexed five years later, Korea chafed under Japanese colonial rule for 35 years—until the end of World War II,...
Occupied by Japan after the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and formally annexed five years later, Korea chafed under Japanese colonial rule for 35 years —until the end of World War II, when its division into two nations began.
North and South Korea have been divided for more than 70 years, ever since the Korean Peninsula became an unexpected casualty of the escalating Cold War between two rival superpowers: the Soviet Union and the United States.
The North responded in kind, installing the former communist guerrilla Kim Il Sung as the first premier of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the capital of Pyongyang. Syngman Rhee, President of Korea, meeting with General Matthew B. Ridgway. (Credit: Bettmann Archives/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, North Korea remained an isolated “hermit kingdom” —particularly after the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s—and economically underdeveloped, as well as a virtual police state ruled by a single family for three generations.
The United Nations intervened to protect the South, sending a US-led force. As it occupied the south, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea attempted to unify Korea under its regime, initiating the nationalisation of industry, land reform, and the restoration of the People's Committees.
In April, Jeju islanders rose up against the looming division of the country. South Korean troops were sent to repress the rebellion. Tens of thousands of islanders were killed and by one estimate, 70% of the villages were burned by the South Korean troops.
In December 1945, at the Moscow Conference, the Allies agreed that the Soviet Union, the US, the Republic of China, and Britain would take part in a trusteeship over Korea for up to five years in the lead-up to independence. Many Koreans demanded independence immediately; however, the Korean Communist Party, which was closely aligned with the Soviet Communist party, supported the trusteeship. According to journalist Fyodor Tertitskiy, documentation from 1945 suggests the Soviet government had no plans for a permanent division.
An assumption behind this division of Korea into two occupation zones was that this was only a temporary arrangement until the wartime agreement on the Korean trusteeship could be implemented, leading to the establishment of a unified Korean state over the entire peninsula.
On 15 August, the " Republic of Korea " ( Daehan Minguk) formally took over power from the U.S. military, with Syngman Rhee as the first president. In the North, the " Democratic People's Republic of Korea " ( Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk) was declared on 9 September, with Kim Il-sung as prime minister.
Main article: Korea under Japanese rule. When the Russo-Japanese War ended in 1905 Korea became a nominal protectorate of Japan, and was annexed by Japan in 1910. The Korean Emperor Gojong was removed. In the following decades, nationalist and radical groups emerged to struggle for independence.
On 27 April 2018, during the 2018 Inter-Korean Summit, the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula was adopted between the Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un and the President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in.
The Cairo Declaration, issued on December 1, 1943, by the United States, Great Britain, and China, pledged independence for Korea “in due course.” This vague phrase aroused the leaders of the Korean provisional government in Chongqing to request interpretation from the United States. Their request, however, received no answer. At the Yalta Conference held in February 1945, U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed to Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin a four-power trusteeship for Korea consisting of the United States, Great Britain, the U.S.S.R., and the Republic of China. Stalin agreed to Roosevelt’s suggestion in principle, but they did not reach any formal agreement on the future status of Korea, and after the Yalta meeting there was a growing uneasiness between the Anglo-American allies and the U.S.S.R.
Although they were roughly divided into rightists, leftists, and middle-of-the-roaders, they had a common goal: the immediate attainment of self-government.
Commission of the rival U.S. and Soviet military commands in Korea to settle the question of establishing a unified Korea.
As early as August 16, 1945, some Koreans organized a Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence, headed by Woon-hyung Lyuh (Yŏ Un-hyŏng), who was closely associated with the leftists. On September 6 the delegates attending a “national assembly” that was called by the committee proclaimed the People’s Republic of Korea.
In October Korean leaders in the north organized the Bureau of Five Provinces Administration, a central governing body, and this was replaced in February 1946 by the Provisional People’s Committee for North Korea. This new agency, a de facto central government, adopted the political structure of the Soviet Union.
The assembly was empowered to enact ordinances on domestic affairs but was subject to the veto of the military government.
The south, however, held elections under the supervision of the Temporary Commission on May 10, 1948. The National Assembly convened on May 31 and elected Syngman Rhee as its speaker.
When Japan surrendered the allies decide to split Korea at the 38th parallel. The Soviets were to occupy the Northern half, and the US to occupy the Southern portion. There were supposed to be elections in both parts of the country to choose a Government. These elections never happened. The Russians created a Communist States in the North, which in 1950 invaded the South and the Korean War happened.
Korea was annexed by the Japanese Empire in 1910, making it a part of their territory. When Japan fell at the end of World War 2, it was occupied by the capitalist democratic USA in the south and the communist Soviet Union in the North, who then created the satellite states of North and South Korea, that followed the ideology of the country that had created them.
The trust administrators from the U.S. and the USSR were supposed to arrange for nation-]wide elections to reunify Korea in 1948, but neither side trusted the other. The U.S. wanted the entire peninsula to be democratic and capitalist while the Soviets wanted it all to be communist.
The conflict lasted from June 1950 to July 1953 and killed more than 3 million Koreans and U.N., and Chinese forces. A truce was signed at Panmunjom on July 27, 1953, and in it the two countries ended up back where they started, divided along the 38th parallel.
The Korean and Cold Wars. In 1950, Kim Il-sung decided to try to reunify Korea under communist rule. He launched an invasion of South Korea, which turned into the three-year-long Korean War . South Korea fought back against the North, supported by the United Nations and manned with troops from the United States.
More than 60 years and millions of lives later, the accidental division of North and South Korea continues to haunt the world, and the 38th parallel remains arguably the tensest border on Earth.
Despite food aid efforts by South Korea, the U.S., and China, North Korea suffered a death toll of at least 300,000, although estimates vary widely.
South Korea remained committed to libertarian ideals and democracy, with a strong anti-communist attitude.
At the end of the war, Koreans were united in joy and hope that they were going to be a single independent country. The establishment of the division—made without their input, let alone their consent—eventually dashed those hopes.
Stalin, on the other hand, wanted Soviet “sphere of influence” in Central and Eastern Europe, starting with Poland, in order to provide the Soviet Union with a geopolitical buffer zone between it and the western capitalist world. Clearly there were some key conflicting interests that needed to be addressed.
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Post-war negotiations took place at two conferences in 1945, one before the official end of the war, and one after. These conferences set the stage for the beginning of the Cold War and of a divided Europe. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin (left to right) at the Yalta Conference.
As per its Yalta agreement, the Soviet Union was set to invade Japan on August 15. While the Potsdam declaration did not specifically mention the newly developed atomic bomb, Truman had mentioned a new powerful weapon to Stalin during the conference.
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