Korea is divided

Korea divided

During the 1945 Potsdam Conference, the strident 'western' Allies, boosted by the US possession of the Atom Bomb, had implied that the 38th parallel was a likely border along which to divide the Korean peninsula between Communist eastern and western free-world interests. Three months after Victory in Europe, and two days after an atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945. When the Japanese unconditional surrender was announced on the 15 August, the Potsdam Declaration came into effect and it included stripping Japan of an empire that included Korea.

As the surrender of Japan was announced, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) was established on 15 August. Soviet troops entered Pyongyang on 24 August 1945 and on 12 September, the People's Republic of Korea (PRK) was declared. A United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) administered the south from 8 September 1945 until 15 August 1948 when the First Republic of Korea government assumed the governing of South Korea. Under USSR control, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was proclaimed on 9 September 1948, with Kim Il-sung as the premier.