Historical background & Introduction

Introduction 

 Korea is the only divided nation in the world. When I was a child, West Germany and East Germany reunified, so people said that someday we will too and I had no idea this divided history remains this long at that time. I was too little to understand situation between two Koreas. Even though I am a Korean, since someday I didn't care about North Korea anymore and neither did most young people in Korea. As time goes by, the possibility of reunification is getting slender. And I want to treat about this, why and how they were divided and what happened in the past, so we can predict what is going to happen in the Korean peninsula in the future.



          

Japanese colonial era and national division

In the Korean peninsula, there are two countries, North Korea and South Korea, which used be the one country, Joseon.


 In 1910, Joseon was forced to become a Japanese colony. Since that, the fact that Korean resistance didn't have a pivot to against Japan caused their every attempts to recover the sovereignty of the Korea had to be failed.

 In 15th August 1945, the Korea became an independent country. However, because becoming independent was not achieved by itself, what happened after becoming independent seemed paying the penalty for this.

 In July 1945, just before the World War 2 finished, U.S.A, Soviet and Britain held a top-level meeting in Potsdam.  They made a trusteeship plan to Korea. Korea territory was divided by a new boundary, it was called 38th parallel.



 In 8th August 1945, first atomic bomb "Little boy" was dropped on Hiroshima, at the same time, in Manchuria, The soviet union's southward movement started with a declaration war against on Japan.

 In 9th August 1945, second atomic bomb 'Fat Man'  was dropped on Nagasaki, the Japanese emperor declared unconditional surrender in the day after this.



 In 10th August 1946, the U.S.A made a draft about surrendering, the Japanese force which was in the Chinese territory surrendered to China, the force which was engaging in the battle with Soviet force surrendered to Soviet, and the forces in the Japanese territory surrendered to U.S.A.

 Lastly, In Korean territory, the force in north of 38th parallel was decided to surrender to Soviet, the force in south of 38th parallel was decided to surrender to U.S.A. And that was the beginning of division of Korean territory.