Internet Resources
- Commemorating the Korean WarExplore resources commemorating the Korean War.
- Korean War: HistoryThe Korean war began on June 25, 1950, when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south.
- Korean War RecordsView resources from the National Archives on the Korean War.
- ‘The Forgotten War’ RememberedVeterans History Project marks the anniversary of the Korean War.
The Forgotten War
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window
As World War II came to an end, the Korean peninsula was split at the 38th parallel by allied forces: the North went Communist; the South went Capitalist. Less than five years after the split, North Korean forces led by Kim-Il-Sung invaded the South. The United Nations, headed by the United States, enacted the first ever "police action" to combat the invading North Korean forces. Thus, the world was once again plunged into pinnacle conflict that would set the tone for the second half of the 20th century. Over 36,000 American forces died during the war. 7,600 are unaccounted. The 38th parallel remains in place to this day.
Perspectives
The Korean War
The Korean War, More than any other war in modern times, is surrounded by residues and slippages of memory. The Great War's place is indelible, its annihilating violence a permanent reminder of war's carnage. World War II was the good war, an outright victory to be celebrated. Vietnam tore the United States apart. With Korea there is less a presence than an absence; thus the default reflexive American name: "the forgotten war." For years I rejected the "forgotten war" rubric; the unknown war seemed much better. But for Americans Korea is both: a forgotten war and a never-known war. For Americans Korea is just one among several wars best forgotten, just another transient episode among a myriad of interventions in Third World countries that do not bear close examination, but have unsettling ways of coming back to haunt us. Book jacket.
The Korean War
This first truly international history of the Korean War argues that by its timing, its course, and its outcome it functioned as a substitute for World War III. Stueck draws on recently available materials from seven countries, plus the archives of the United Nations, presenting a detailed narrative of the diplomacy of the conflict and a broad assessment of its critical role in the Cold War. He emphasizes the contribution of the United Nations, which at several key points in the conflict provided an important institutional framework within which less powerful nations were able to restrain the aggressive tendencies of the United States. In Stueck's view, contributors to the U.N. cause in Korea provided support not out of any abstract commitment to a universal system of collective security but because they saw an opportunity to influence U.S. policy. Chinese intervention in Korea in the fall of 1950 brought with it the threat of world war, but at that time and in other instances prior to the armistice in July 1953, America's NATO allies and Third World neutrals succeeded in curbing American adventurism. While conceding the tragic and brutal nature of the war, Stueck suggests that it helped to prevent the occurrence of an even more destructive conflict in Europe.
The Korean War
Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, this volume looks at the history of the conflict that became America's fist unwinnable foreign war. Illustrations.
Korean War Veterans Memorial
Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.
Korean War Veterans Memorial (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)