Korean War Begins (1950)
In the early morning of June 25, 1950, approximately 75,000 soldiers of the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel in a surprise invasion of South Korea. The Korean War, which would ultimately involve forces from 21 nations and kill an estimated 3–5 million people, had begun.
A Divided Peninsula
Korea had been divided at the 38th parallel in 1945 following Japan's defeat in World War II. The Soviet Union administered the north; the United States the south. Each superpower established a government in its own image: Kim Il-sung led the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, while Syngman Rhee led the Republic of Korea in the south. Both men claimed legitimacy over the entire peninsula, and border skirmishes had grown increasingly violent through 1949. When US Secretary of State Dean Acheson delivered a speech in January 1950 outlining America's "defense perimeter" in Asia — conspicuously omitting South Korea — it may have signaled to North Korean and Soviet planners that an invasion would not draw American intervention. Stalin approved Kim Il-sung's invasion plan in April 1950, providing Soviet weapons and equipment.
Did You Know?
The United Nations Security Council was able to authorize a military response to the North Korean invasion only because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Council at the time — protesting the UN's refusal to admit the People's Republic of China. Had the Soviets been present, they would certainly have vetoed it.
War on the Peninsula
South Korean and American forces were driven south in the first weeks, nearly pushed into the sea at the Pusan Perimeter. General Douglas MacArthur's bold amphibious landing at Inchon on September 15, 1950 — deep behind enemy lines — reversed the course of the war dramatically, and UN forces swept north past the 38th parallel. But when they approached the Yalu River on the Chinese border, China entered the war in October 1950 with hundreds of thousands of troops, pushing the UN forces back south once more. The front stabilized roughly along the original 38th parallel by mid-1951, and grinding trench warfare continued for two more years while armistice negotiations dragged on.
Armistice and the Forgotten War
An armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, ending active fighting — but no peace treaty was ever concluded. Korea technically remains divided at essentially the same line where the war began. An estimated 36,000 Americans, 180,000 Chinese, 415,000 South Koreans, and 520,000 North Koreans died in the conflict, along with enormous civilian casualties. Despite its massive scale, the Korean War has often been called "the Forgotten War" in the United States, overshadowed by World War II before it and Vietnam after it. South Korea went on to become one of the world's most dynamic economies; North Korea became one of its most isolated dictatorships. The division endures to this day.