The Korean War began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea and ended
on 27 July 1953.
It was considered a cold-war era proxy war between North Korea (with the support of China
and the Soviet Union) and South Korea (with the support of the United Nations, principally
from the United States).
At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States liberated Korea from
imperial Japanese colonial control on 15 August 1945.
After the war had ended, Korea was divided at the 38th parallel into two zones of occupation,
the Soviets administered the northern half and the Americans administered the southern half.
With the border set at the 38th parallel in 1948, two sovereign states were established
as a result of geopolitical tensions of the Cold War.
A socialist state was established in the north under the communist leadership of Kim Il-sung
and a capitalist state in the south under the anti-communist leadership of Syngman Rhee.
Both governments of the two new Korean states claimed to be the sole legitimate government
of all of Korea, and neither accepted the border as permanent.
The conflict escalated into warfare when North Korean military (Korean People's Army, KPA)
forces—supported by the Soviet Union and China—invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950.
The United Nations Security Council authorized the formation of the United Nations Command
and the dispatch of forces to Korea to repel the North Korean invasion.
21 countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force, with the United
States providing around 90% of the military personnel.
After the first two months of war, South Korean Army (ROKA) and the US forces rapidly dispatched
to Korea were on the point of defeat.
As a result, the ROKA and US troops retreated to a small area behind a defensive line known
as the Pusan Perimeter.
In September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Incheon, and cut off many
KPA troops in South Korea.
Those who escaped envelopment and capture were forced back north.
UN forces invaded North Korea in October 1950 and moved rapidly towards the Yalu River—the
border with China—but on 19 October 1950, Chinese forces of the People's Volunteer Army
(PVA) crossed the Yalu and entered the war.
The surprise Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces and Chinese forces
were in South Korea by late December.
In these and subsequent battles, Seoul was captured four times, and communist forces
were pushed back to positions around the 38th parallel, close to where the war started.
After this the front stabilized and the last two years of fighting became a war of attrition,
the war in the air, however, was never a stalemate.
North Korea was subject to massive U.S. bombing.
Jet fighters confronted each other in air-to-air combat for the first time in history, and
Soviet pilots covertly flew in defense of their communist allies.
The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed.
The agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to separate North and South Korea,
and allowed the return of prisoners.
However, no peace treaty was ever signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at
war, engaged in a frozen conflict.
In April 2018, the leaders of North and South Korea met at the DMZ and agreed to work towards
a treaty to formally end the Korean War.
The Korean War was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, with approximately
3 million war fatalities and a larger proportional civilian death toll than World War II or the
Vietnam War.
It incurred the destruction of virtually all of Korea's major cities, thousands of massacres
by both sides (including the mass killing of tens of thousands of suspected communists
by the South Korean government), and the torture and starvation of prisoners of war by the
North Korean command.
North Korea became among the most heavily-bombed countries in history.
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