Today in Korean history

Today in Korean history

Aug. 6

1902 -- Kim So-wol, known as "the Koreans' poet," is born into an upper-class family in a mountain village in North Pyongan Province, now located in North Korea.

Kim married at 14, graduated from high school and went to Tokyo to attend college. After returning home, he began writing under the tutelage of his former teacher, Kim Eok.

Hounded by financial problems, he committed suicide in 1934, leaving behind 154 poems and essays.

1991 -- South and North Korea are simultaneously admitted into the United Nations. South Korea first sought to join the world body in 1975 but was blocked by the Soviet Union and China, which were ideological allies of North Korea. After establishing diplomatic ties with Seoul in the early 1990s, Moscow and Beijing shifted their policy and supported the simultaneous entry.

1997 -- A Korean Air Boeing 747 crashes into a hillside while trying to land in heavy rain at Guam International Airport. Only 28 of the 254 passengers survived.

2009 -- South Korea and India agree to eliminate or cut tariffs on goods over the next 10 years under a trade agreement that aims to boost their economic cooperation. Under the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), the two nations agreed to drastically lower import tariffs on cars and other manufactured items.

2015 -- Chun Kyung-ja, a prominent South Korean artist, dies at her residence in New York. She reportedly suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 2003 and remained bedridden in Manhattan until her death. The public was belatedly informed of her death by her daughter.

Chun was best known for her depictions of flowers and women from the 1960s to the 1980s with bold and vividly colored paintings.

She retired from painting in 1991, when she faced plagiarism charges. The artist left for New York in 1998 after donating 93 paintings to the Seoul Museum of Art.

2019 -- North Korea fires two projectiles believed to be short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea, in an apparent show of force against the ongoing joint military exercise between Seoul and Washington.
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