The Korean War began on this day in 1950, when the North Korea’s Korean People’s Army (KPA) launched an invasion of the south. In the absence of the Soviet Union’s representative, the UN Security Council denounced the attack and called on member nations to provide military assistance to repel the invasion.
Seoul was captured by the KPA on 28 June, and by early August, the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) and its allies were nearly defeated, holding onto only the small Pusan Perimeter in the peninsula’s southeast. On 15 September, UN forces landed at Inchon near Seoul, cutting off KPA troops and supply lines. UN forces broke out from the perimeter on 18 September, recaptured Seoul, and invaded North Korea in October, capturing Pyongyang and advancing towards the Yalu River (border with China).
On 19 October, the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) crossed the Yalu and entered the war on the side of the North. UN forces retreated from North Korea in December, following the PVA’s first and second offensive. Communist forces captured Seoul again in January 1951 before losing it to a UN counter-offensive two months later. After an abortive Chinese spring offensive, UN forces retook territory roughly up to the 38th parallel. Armistice negotiations began in July 1951, but dragged on as the fighting became a war of attrition and the North suffered devastating damage from UN bombing, destroying virtually all of North Korea’s major cities.
Combat ended on 27 July 1953 with the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement, which allowed the exchange of prisoners and created a 4-kilometre wide (2.5 mile) Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) along the frontline, with a Joint Security Area at Panmunjom.
The conflict caused around one million military deaths and an estimated 1.5 million to 3 million civilian deaths.
With her brother on her back a war weary Korean girl tiredly trudges by a stalled M-46 tank
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Today is the birthday, in 1943, of Carly Simon, US singer, songwriter, (1973 UK No.3 and US No.1 single ‘You’re So Vain’, 1974 US No.5 single with James Taylor ‘Mockingbird’). In 2015, after keeping quiet for more than 40 years, Carly Simon admitted that ‘You’re So Vain’ was about Warren Beatty, but only one verse of it. Simon said the other verses were about two other men. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WM_R-6AKHE
