Q 01/05

South Koreans commonly call the Korean War 'yugio', or 6·25, after what?

A) The date the North invaded

B) The days the fighting lasted

C) A United Nations resolution

D) The latitude of the border

Answer · why

A) The date the North invaded

The date the North invaded was 25 June 1950, written 6·25 in Korean style. The attack came before dawn, and Seoul fell just three days later.

Q 02/05

Korea was divided in 1945 into Soviet and American occupation zones along which line of latitude?

A) the 17th parallel

B) the 38th parallel

C) the 49th parallel

D) the 45th parallel

Answer · why

B) the 38th parallel

The 38th parallel was picked in a hurry by two US colonels working from a National Geographic map, because it kept Seoul in the American zone. To thei...

Q 03/05

Which future Secretary of State to Kennedy and Johnson helped draw Korea's dividing line as a young colonel in 1945?

A) Henry Kissinger

B) Cyrus Vance

C) Dean Rusk

D) Dean Acheson

Answer · why

C) Dean Rusk

Dean Rusk later admitted that neither he nor fellow colonel Charles Bonesteel was a Korea expert, and nobody who was had been consulted before the lin...

Q 04/05

Which neighbour annexed Korea in 1910 and ruled it as a colony for the next 35 years?

A) Russia

B) China

C) Japan

D) Mongolia

Answer · why

C) Japan

Japan annexed Korea in 1910, so when it surrendered in 1945 the victors split the peninsula into northern and southern occupation zones, a division me...

Q 05/05

Who led North Korea from Pyongyang at the outbreak of the war?

A) Kim Il Sung

B) Kim Jong Il

C) Park Chung Hee

D) Kim Ku

Answer · why

A) Kim Il Sung

Kim Il Sung grew up in Manchuria, where his parents had fled colonial rule, and fought there as a guerrilla before returning to Korea in 1945.