Today in Korean history

Today in Korean history



Aug. 25

1936 -- The daily Dong-Ah Ilbo publishes a picture of Korean Olympic marathon
winner Sohn Ki-chung with the Japanese flag on his chest erased. Sohn
participated in the Berlin Olympics as a Japanese athlete, as Korea was then a
colony of the island nation. The Japanese regime suspended the newspaper, but
later allowed it to publish again after it fired the pertinent journalist and ran
an apology.

1948 -- North Korea holds a general election to establish a separate government.
South Korea held its own election in May that year.

1999 -- The Ministry of Information and Communication says more than 20 million
people own mobile phones.

2000 -- The government releases a list of 63 prisoners of conscience who will be
sent to communist North Korea. Jailed during the 1950-53 Korean War and refusing
to accept the capitalist South as their home, they were bused to the North on
Sept. 2. Their repatriation was made as a result of an inter-Korean summit in
June, when South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il agreed to cooperate for reunification and increase social and economic
exchanges.

2008 -- President Lee Myung-bak holds a summit meeting with Chinese President Hu
Jintao in Seoul and asks Beijing to refrain from forcibly repatriating North
Korean defectors in consideration of their human rights.
(END)