Today in Korean history

Jan. 26

1950 -- South Korea and the United States sign a mutual defense and assistance treaty. The agreement was sealed five months before the Korean War broke out in June.

1962 -- The last princess of the Joseon Dynasty, Deokhye-ongju, returns from Japan after more than 30 unhappy years there. Born in 1912, two years after Korea became a Japanese colony, the daughter of Emperor Gojong found herself a victim of the turbulent times.

1962 -- South Korea and Mexico establish diplomatic relations.

1985 -- Mother Teresa visits South Korea.

2001 -- Lee Su-hyeon, a South Korean studying in Japan, dies when he is hit by a train in a Tokyo subway station after saving a drunken Japanese man who had fallen onto the tracks.

2010 -- North Korea declares two maritime areas near the inter-Korean maritime border in the Yellow Sea as "no-sail" zones.

2018 -- A fire breaks out in a hospital in Miryang, 280 kilometers southeast of Seoul, killing nearly 40 people and injuring 143 others in one of the country's deadliest blazes in a decade.

2020 -- North Korean state media report that Kim Kyong-hui, aunt of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, showed up at a concert celebrating Lunar New Year's Day at the Samjiyon Theater in Pyongyang the previous day. It marks her first public appearance in more than six years since the execution of her husband, Jang Song-thaek, once the No. 2 man in the North.
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