Day of the Shining Star
Kim Jong-il was born in February 1941 to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-suk in Siberia in the Russian Federal Republic, Soviet Union where his father had been in exile because of his guerilla activities. North Korean propaganda, however, dates Kim Jong-il's birth to 16 February 1942 and locates it at the Mount Paektu area in Korea, the mythical place of origin of the Korean people, where Kim Il-sung supposedly ran a guerilla camp. In reality, the guerillas were based in Manchuria at the time and Kim himself had been to the Soviet Far East before and after Kim Jong-il's birth.
Kim Hong-il (general)
In August 1948, Kim moved to South Korea to join the newly-formed Republic of Korea Army. He was assigned to be the principal of the Korea Military Academy. In 1949, he finished writing the "Outline of National Defense", one of the earliest works of the new country's Ministry of National Defense regarding military strategy.