History of Korea
After the end of WWII in 1945, the Allies divided the country into a northern area (protected by the Soviets) and a southern area protected (primarily by the United States). In 1948, when the powers failed to agree on the formation of a single government, this partition became the modern states of North and South Korea. The peninsula was divided at the 38th Parallel: the "Republic of Korea" was created in the south, with the backing of the US and Western Europe, and the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" in the north, with the backing of the Soviets and the communist People's Republic of China. The new premier of North Korea, Kim il-Sung, launched the Korean War in 1950 in an attempt to reunify the country under Communist rule. After immense material and human destruction, the conflict ended with a cease-fire in 1953. The two nations officially remain at war because a peace treaty was never signed. In 1991, both states were accepted into the United Nations.
Fourth Republic of Korea
The Fourth Republic () was the government of South Korea between 1972 and 1981, regulated by the Yusin Constitution adopted in October 1972 and confirmed in a referendum on 21 November 1972. From 1972 to 1979, power was monopolized by Park Chung Hee and his Democratic Republican Party under the highly centralized authoritarian "Yusin System". With the assassination of Park on 26 October 1979, the Republic entered a period of tumult and transition under the short-lived nominal presidency of Choi Kyu-hah, controlled under severe escalating martial law and witnessing the coup d'état of December Twelfth, the violent unfolding of the Gwangju Democratization Movement and its armed suppression, the coup d'état of May Seventeenth and presidency of Chun Doo-hwan, and finally the transition to the Fifth Republic under Chun in 1981.