Pyongyang:Seoul A number of significant events in Korean history have marked October 10 across the years.
According to Yonhap News Agency, in 1932, Korean independence fighter Lee Bong-chang died in a Japanese prison after his attempt to assassinate Japanese Emperor Hirohito. The Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.
In 1990, South and North Korea jointly hosted a film festival in New York, marking a significant cultural event since the peninsula's division in 1945. Three years later, in 1993, tragedy struck when a 110-ton ferry sank off the coast of Buan, South Korea, resulting in the deaths of 268 people.
The year 1997 saw the debut of "Nanta," a non-verbal show that combined cooking with high-energy percussion, at a Seoul theater. The performance later gained international fame, including a run on Broadway.
In 2014, South and North Korea exchanged machine gun fire across the border after North Korea attempted to shoot down balloons carrying anti-regime leaflets from the South. Fortunately, there were no casualties or damage reported in South Korea.
On October 10, 2020, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un showcased a new intercontinental ballistic missile during a military parade in Pyongyang, promising to bolster the country's war deterrence.
Most recently, in 2024, author Han Kang made history by winning the Nobel Prize in literature, becoming the first South Korean to receive the award. The announcement led to a surge in demand for her books, temporarily overwhelming the websites of major bookstores.