Today in Korean history

April 3

1906 -- A railway opens, linking Seoul, now in South Korea, and Sinuiju, now in North Korea. The 518.5-kilometer multi-rail line carried the largest traffic volume on the Korean Peninsula until the country was divided in 1948. South and North Korea agreed to reconnect the railway during the first inter-Korean summit in August 2000 and have worked on its construction since. Seoul expects the railway to boost exchanges with Pyongyang and save costs on the delivery of South Korean exports to China and Russia.

1938 -- Sookmyung Women's College, the predecessor of Sookmyung Women's University, opens.

1948 -- An uprising breaks out on Jeju, the largest island off the Korean Peninsula, when the U.S.-backed South Korean government attempts to hold elections separately from the communist North. Jeju residents attacked police stations on the island, prompting U.S. commanders in Seoul to dispatch 1,700 Korean police and thousands of soldiers. Historians estimate there were nearly 14,000 civilian deaths in the ensuing violence. The massacre has had a lasting influence on Jeju's residents, who have since rarely elected lawmakers with political affiliations.

1954 -- The Korea Development Bank, the nation's representative borrower of overseas funds, begins operations.

1974 - President Park Chung-hee announces an emergency bill to suppress anti-government forces, enabling the government to sentence leaders of civic protests to death and effectively stifle the press.

2000 -- The Citizens' Coalition for the 2000 General Election names 86 candidates as unfit for public service. Of those targeted, 68.6 percent failed to win National Assembly seats. The organization released a list of 108 such candidates this year.

2002 -- Lim Dong-won, national security adviser to President Kim Dae-jung, visits Pyongyang as a special presidential envoy.

2017 -- Presidential front-runner Moon Jae-in is nominated to lead the liberal Democratic Party in the May 9 presidential election after making a clear sweep of all four rounds in the party primary.
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