Today in Korean history

March 19

1921 -- Na Hye-seok becomes the first female Korean painter to hold an exhibition in Korea. The exhibition was held at the headquarters of the Gyeongseong Ilbo newspaper in Seoul.

1971 -- The government begins construction on the nation's first nuclear power plant, Gori No. 1.

1991 -- A medical research team led by Lee Hae-bang succeeds in inventing the world's first insulin patch, which allows diabetics to absorb insulin without an injection.

1992 -- Francesca Donner, the wife of the nation's first president, Rhee Syng-man, dies in Seoul. She was 93.

1993 -- South Korea allows Lee In-mo, a former North Korean spy, to return home. Despite 40 years of imprisonment in South Korea, Lee had refused to renounce communism, which was a reason for his repatriation.

1994 -- An inter-Korean dialogue, which continued off and on, breaks down after a North Korean official made threatening remarks at a border meeting. The North Korean official, Pak Young-soo, said, "If war breaks out, Seoul will become a sea of fire."

1996 -- The now-defunct U.S.-led Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization selects the Seoul-based Korea Power Electric Corp. as its main contractor to build two power-generating nuclear reactors in North Korea as a reward for the North's pledge to give up its nuclear weapons program under a 1994 agreement. The project fell through after the U.S. accused North Korea in 2003 of secretly pushing a separate uranium-based nuclear arms program.

2003 -- Lee Seok-hee, former deputy chief of the National Tax Service, is repatriated to Seoul from the United States for questioning by prosecutors on charges of raising illegal funds for government candidate Lee Hoi-chang in the 1997 presidential election. Lee Seok-hee was later sentenced to 18 months in prison.

2013 -- Prosecutors raid the headquarters of the Korea Exchange Bank to investigate allegations that it deliberately raised lending rates for smaller firms to rake in profits totaling over 18 billion won.

2018 -- Prosecutors file for a court warrant to arrest former President Lee Myung-bak over 12 counts of corruption charges, including bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power. A district court later convicted Lee on seven charges, sentencing him to a 15-year prison term and a 13 billion-won fine.

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