Today in Korean history

Nov. 30

1980 -- Local television and radio stations TBC and DBS air their last programs in the wake of the Chun Doo-hwan government's forcible merger and closure of media outlets nationwide. Chun, a general who seized power through a coup in 1979, gagged the press to prolong his regime.

1991 -- Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, and Park Bo-hi, head of the church-affiliated Segye Times, visit Pyongyang to meet then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung. Kim died of heart failure three years later and his son Kim Jong-il inherited power.

2000 -- Two hundred separated families from South and North Korea hold tearful reunions in Seoul and Pyongyang for the first time since the 1950-53 Korean War. The reunions were one of the crowning achievements from the landmark summit talks between the leaders of the two Koreas earlier in the year.

2003 -- Two South Korean nationals are killed and two others wounded in an ambush in Iraq, the foreign ministry said. The first South Korean casualties since the Iraq war were confirmed to have been employees of an electric company in Seoul.

2015 -- South Korea ratifies its free trade agreement (FTA) with China, after inking the deal on June 1 of the same year. At the time of ratification, China was the world's largest importer of South Korean goods.

2016 -- The U.N. Security Council adopts Resolution 2321 in response to North Korea's fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9. A package of sanctions included a significant cap on Pyongyang's exports of coal.

2018 -- A South Korean train carrying dozens of officials and experts departs for North Korea to conduct an 18-day joint inspection of a 412-kilometer railway in western North Korea. The two Koreas held a groundbreaking ceremony for a joint project to modernize and reconnect roads and railways over the inter-Korean border the following month, but little progress was made afterward amid stalled denuclearization dialogue between the United States and North Korea.
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