Seoul: A series of notable events in Korean history have unfolded over the years on this day, with the most recent being the arrest of Do Kwon, the co-founder and CEO of blockchain firm Terraform Labs. Kwon was apprehended in Montenegro on charges of alleged fraud and other offenses related to the multibillion-dollar collapse of the firm’s cryptocurrencies.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the historical timeline also marks several diplomatic and political milestones for South Korea. In 1949, the United States sent John Muccio as its first ambassador to South Korea, establishing a significant diplomatic presence in the country. The year 1990 saw South Korea forging diplomatic ties with Bulgaria, followed by establishing relations with Azerbaijan in 1992, highlighting South Korea’s expanding international relations.
The maritime tensions between North and South Korea were exacerbated in 2000 when the North Korean navy announced its own version of the inter-Korean maritime border. This declaration placed the border line farther south of the Northern Limit Line previously demarcated by South Korea, which has been a point of contention between the two nations.
In 2007, Kim Woo-choong, the founder of the now-defunct Daewoo Group, publicly apologized to former executives, expressing his remorse over the discrediting of their past efforts. This acknowledgment came after the conglomerate’s collapse, which had far-reaching implications.
The year 2011 was marked by heightened tensions as North Korea issued a warning against a plan by South Korean activists to send anti-Pyongyang leaflets into the communist country. This was an indication of the fragile inter-Korean relations during that period.
A more somber event in Korean history occurred in 2017, when the Sewol ferry was raised from the waters off South Korea’s southwest coast. The ferry had tragically sunk nearly three years prior, resulting in the loss of over 300 lives and becoming one of the worst maritime disasters in history.