Today in Korean history

Aug. 10

1934 -- A massive flood hits the southern part of Korea, leaving 800 people dead.

1940 -- Two major Korean vernacular dailies, the Chosun Ilbo and the Donga Ilbo, are closed by Japan's colonial authorities because of their anti-Japan stances. Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910-1945.

1946 -- The North Korean Provisional People's Committee, an interim government established by Kim Il-sung, who became North Korea's founding leader, nationalizes key industries and confiscates private property in the territory that would later become the communist country.

1961 -- South Korea and Cameroon establish diplomatic ties.

1990 -- Samsung Electronics Co. develops a 16-megabit dynamic random access memory chip.

1993 -- The South Korean government decides to build the National Museum of Korea in central Seoul. The museum first opened in a hall of Gyeongbok Palace in northern Seoul in the winter of 1945, shortly after Korea regained its sovereignty from Japanese colonial rule but never had a permanent home and moved from one place to another.

2000 -- North Korea and South Korean conglomerate Hyundai agree to operate a tour program enabling South Koreans to visit the North's scenic Mount Kumgang resort on the country's southeast coast.

2008 -- South Korean swimmer Park Tae-hwan grabs the first Olympic swimming gold for his country by winning the men's 400-meter freestyle competition of the Beijing Games. Park came in with a time of 3:41.86, defeating China's Zhang Lin who finished in 3:42.44 for the silver.

2009 -- Hyun Jung-eun, chairwoman of Hyundai Group, visits Pyongyang to seek the release of a detained employee of Hyundai Asan Corp., the group's North Korea business arm. Yu Seong-jin was detained on March 30 at a joint industrial park in the North's border town of Kaesong. North Korea accused him of "slandering" the North's political system and trying to persuade a local woman to defect to the South.

2010 -- Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan offers a renewed apology to South Korea over the 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

2013 -- South Korean civic groups hold a candlelight vigil in Seoul's city center to denounce the state spy agency over its alleged meddling in the last presidential election.

2015 -- South Korea resumes a propaganda loudspeaker campaign along the tensely guarded border in retaliation for the Aug. 4 detonation of a North Korean mine in the Demilitarized Zone a week earlier, the defense ministry said. The loudspeaker broadcasting is a kind of psychological warfare against the communist North.

2017 -- North Korea releases Lim Hyeon-su, a Korean-Canadian pastor, on "sick bail." Lim had been held in captivity in the communist country since January 2015, when he entered via China on a humanitarian mission.
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