Today in Korean history

June 14

1950 -- South Korea joins the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

1993 -- A helicopter carrying a crew filming the South Korean movie "Woman on Top of Man" crashes into the Han River in Seoul, killing seven people, including the film's director.

2000 -- President Kim Dae-jung takes part in the first inter-Korean summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang. They released a five-point joint statement aimed at increasing economic and social exchanges, and holding reunions of families separated since the division of the country before the Korean War.

2002 -- South Korea, co-hosting the FIFA World Cup with Japan, advance to the final 16 for the first time by beating Portugal. Korea later reached the semifinal but were defeated by Germany.

2003 -- South and North Korea hold ceremonies inside the Demilitarized Zone near the truce village of Panmunjom to mark the reconnection of railroads that have been severed since the 1950-53 Korean War. Reconstruction of the railroads was one of the agreements made at the inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang in 2000.

2007 -- Macau's Banco Delta Asia transfers more than US$20 million in North Korean funds, which North Korea requested as a precondition to taking steps toward denuclearization. The U.S. had earlier frozen the money for nearly two years, accusing the bank of money laundering and counterfeiting for North Korea. After the transfer, the communist North came back to nuclear talks, which it had been boycotting for more than a year.

2009 -- Officials disclose the abduction of a South Korean woman, along with eight other foreigners, by a group of insurgents in Yemen. The then-34-year-old woman was later reported to have been killed.

2011 -- The United States intercepts a North Korean ship suspected of carrying military-related contraband.

2014 -- A Seoul court rules that the state tax office refund Lone Star Funds 119 billion won (US$117 million) in taxes collected from the U.S. buyout fund in its sale of a stake in the Korea Exchange Bank.

2015 -- The World Health Organization warns that South Korea may have to brace for a drawn-out battle against the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, saying its outbreak is "large and complex."

2017 -- A North Korean soldier defects to South Korea after crossing the border bisecting the two Koreas.

2018 -- U.S. President Donald Trump tweets that the world should feel "safer" because North Korea poses no nuclear threat to the world, after returning to Washington from a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12.
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