Today in Korean history

Oct. 16

1945 -- Dr. Rhee Syng-man returns home after decades of exile in the United States, two months after Japan's surrender at the end of World War II and the end of its colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula. Rhee is elected South Korea's first president three years later.

1962 -- South Korea and Saudi Arabia forge diplomatic relations.

1979 -- Seongsu Bridge, a bridge over Han River in Seoul, opens.

1999 -- A 160-member advance team of the South Korean Army's Evergreen Unit arrives in East Timor as part of U.N. peacekeeping operations. East Timor was occupied by Indonesia in 1975 and became an independent state in 2002.

2000 -- South Korea and the U.S agree on the extension of the range of South Korean-made missiles to 300 kilometers during their regular military meeting in Washington.

2008 -- Crew members of a South Korean-flagged vessel are released after being captured by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, sandwiched between Somalia and Yemen, on Sept. 10 of that year. The boat carried 22 crew members -- eight South Koreans and 14 Burmese.

2013 -- Nine foreign crew members are killed after a Panamanian-registered cargo ship, named the CHENG LUI 15, sinks off the eastern coast of South Korea. The 8,461-ton vessel, carrying 19 sailors -- 18 Chinese and one Vietnamese -- went down 900 meters off the southeastern port city of Pohang.

2018 -- South Korea, North Korea and the United Nations Command hold their first trilateral consultations on disarming the Joint Security Area in the heavily fortified border area.
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