SEOUL, November 30 has been marked by several significant events throughout Korean history, encompassing political, cultural, and social developments.
According to Yonhap News Agency, In 1980, the Chun Doo-hwan government, led by the general who seized power through a coup in 1979, enforced a forcible merger and closure of local television and radio stations TBC and DBS. These actions were part of Chun's broader efforts to suppress the press and extend his regime's control.
On this day in 1991, Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, and Park Bo-hi, head of the church-affiliated Segye Times, visited Pyongyang for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Il-sung. Kim passed away from heart failure three years later, and his son Kim Jong-il succeeded him.
The year 2000 witnessed a poignant moment as 200 families separated by the Korean War were reunited in Seoul and Pyongyang. This event, the first of its kind since the 1950-53 conflict, was a direct result of the inter-Korean summit talks earlier that year.
In 2003, two South Korean nationals were killed, and two others wounded in an ambush in Iraq, as announced by the foreign ministry. These were the first South Korean casualties since the start of the Iraq war, with the victims being employees of a Seoul-based electric company.
South Korea ratified its free trade agreement (FTA) with China on this date in 2015. The agreement, initially signed on June 1 of the same year, came at a time when China was the largest importer of South Korean goods.
The U.N. Security Council, responding to North Korea's fifth nuclear test on September 9, 2016, adopted Resolution 2321. This resolution imposed a series of sanctions, including a significant cap on North Korea's coal exports.
In 2018, a South Korean train with officials and experts left for North Korea to conduct an 18-day joint inspection of a 412-kilometer railway in the western part of the country. The following month saw a groundbreaking ceremony for a joint project to modernize and reconnect roads and railways over the inter-Korean border, although progress stalled amid the slowdown in U.S.-North Korea denuclearization talks.
The traditional Korean mask dance, known as "talchum," was added to UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2022, celebrating a key aspect of Korean cultural heritage.