Today in Korean history

Jan. 8

1932 -- Independence fighter Lee Bong-chang throws a grenade in a failed attempt to assassinate Japanese Emperor Hirohito during a military parade on the outskirts of Tokyo. Born in Seoul in 1900, Lee went to Shanghai at the age of 31, where he became a member of a youth patriot organization operating under the Korean provisional government that was in exile there working to restore Korea's independence from Japan.

1965 -- South Korea announces an initial dispatch of 2,000 non-combatant troops to Vietnam. The troop dispatch was made at the request of the United States.

1974 -- President Park Chung-hee issues a set of emergency decrees aimed at banning discussions about revising the Yushin (revitalizing reforms) Constitution and the installation of an emergency military court. The Yushin Constitution was adopted in a national referendum on Nov. 21, 1972.

1984 -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is born, although the communist country has not officially confirmed the date. Kim took power after his father, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011. Unlike the birthdays of his father and his grandfather Kim Il-sung, which are celebrated as national holidays, Kim Jong-un's birthday is marked as an ordinary working day.

1997 -- The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) and North Korea sign agreements in New York on the building of two light-water nuclear reactors in the North. With the signing of the agreement under a 1994 U.S.-North Korean nuclear pact, the light-water reactor project was back on track after a three-month suspension due to a North Korean submarine incursion into South Korean waters.

2012 -- A Chinese man named Liu Qiang was caught by police after throwing four firebombs at the Japanese Embassy building in Seoul and sentenced to 10 months in prison. He had fled to Seoul after allegedly launching an arson attack in 2011 at a controversial World War II shrine in Tokyo. The South Korean court rejected Japan's request to hand over Liu and released him in January 2013.

2019 -- North Korea's state media reports that leader Kim Jong-un is on a four-day trip to China for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It was Kim's fourth trip to the neighboring ally, and came as Washington and Pyongyang were in talks to set the venue for a second summit between Kim and Trump.

2021 -- South Korean victims of wartime sexual enslavement win their first legal victory against the Japanese government in a landmark ruling. The Seoul Central District Court ordered Japan to make financial reparations of 100 million won each to 12 "comfort women" who were forced to work in front-line military brothels during World War II.

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