Wednesday, August 17, 2011
THEN
On August 17, 1945, just two days after Japan surrenders to the Allies, the USSR and the United States split the Korean peninsula along the 38th parallel, with the U.S. taking the southern half. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet Union Premier Josef Stalin agree at the February 1945 Yalta Conference to create an international trusteeship for Korea—however the specific details of the plan are not worked out. Shortly before Japan surrenders, the USSR begins to advance on Japanese colonial territory in Manchuria and Korea. Fearing the USSR would occupy the entire Korean peninsula, President Harry S. Truman proposes, on August 15th, 1945, that Korea be split at the 38th parallel. The following day Stalin agrees.
NOW
Last Wednesday, tensions fluttered briefly on the Korean peninsula when North Korea fired several rounds into the water along the disputed western sea border. South Korea returned fire with warning shots, but no targets were hit and no casualties were reported. Such events have occurred regularly in recent years, with some incidents resulting in casualties. Sixty-six years later, the division of the 38th parallel still separates the two Koreas. Over this time, North and South Korea have grown further and further apart, both politically and economically.
