Today in Korean history

July 12

1948 - South Korea's National Assembly formulates the nation's Constitution. The elections for the country's National Assembly were held under U.N. supervision on May 10.

1979 - South Korean football player Cha Bum-kun starts his career in Germany's Bundesliga. In South Korea, Cha is greatly respected for his accomplishments in the Bundesliga in the 1980s and on the South Korean national team. Cha is also considered the best Asian striker that ever played in Europe.

1982 - South Korea and Australia sign a double taxation treaty.

2001 - The government unveils a set of measures that blocks the additional introduction of Japanese culture into South Korea in a protest against Japan's controversial history textbooks on its colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula.

2005 - South Korea holds a ceremony to launch the country's first light aircraft carrier, the 13,000-ton class "Dokdo Ham" multipurpose ship built by Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Co. The vessel was later used for search operations following the deadly sinking of the Cheonan warship in March 2010.

2006 - Tens of thousands of South Korean activists and farmers brave torrential rains to stage anti-U.S. rallies, denouncing their government's free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with Washington as a form of "U.S. economic colonialism."

2008 - North Korea agrees on a timetable to complete the disabling of its Yongbyon nuclear facility during its six-party disarmament talk, which later fall apart after the North's satellite launch the next year. The same day, North Korea expresses regrets over the death of a South Korean tourist shot by a North Korean solider the previous day, but turns down South Korea's proposal to send a fact-finding team to the shooting site.
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