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Korea had been ruled by Japan.
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Korea was devided into 2.
At the end of the WW2, the northern half and southern half were liberated by different troops each. When the war ended, the North remained Communist-controlled, with a Communist leader, and the south was anti-communist. It was not very democratic. -
Spilling over into open warfare.
The North and South had ruled 2 different countries and each has different policy. That made this war which is called Korean War. -
North Korean troops overwhelmed the South's forces.
By September 1950 all except a small corner of south-east Korea was under Communist control. -
President Truman started to provide against an attack.
Truman immediately sent advisers, supplies and warships to the waters around Korea. Also, he put enormous pressure on the UN Security Council to condemn the actions of the North Koreans and to call on them to withdraw their troops. -
The USSR was booycotting the UN
Normally, in a dispute such as this, the Soviet Union would have used its right of veto to block the call for action by the UN. -
The UN forces and South Korean troops advanced.
The North Koreans were driven back beyond their original border within weeks. MacArthur had quickly achieved the original UN objective of removing Northern Korean troops from South Korea.
It was clear that MacArthur and Truman were striving for a big prize to remove Communism from Korea entirely. -
200,000 Chinese troops joined the North Koreans.
They launched a blistering attack.They had soldiers who were strogly committed to Communism and had been taught by their leader to hate the Americans. Soviet Union supplied modern tanks and planes. At the end, they pushed back the UN forces into South Korea. Then the UN troops recovered and the fighting finally reached stalemate around the 38th parallel. -
MacArthur blatantly ignored the UN instruction and openly threaned an attack on China.
MacArthur wanted to carry on the war, invading China and even using nuclear weapons if necessary. Truman felt that saving South Korea was good enough. His allies in the UN force convinced him that the risks of attacking China and of starting a war that might bring in the USSR were too great, and so an attack on China was ruled out. -
Truman removed MacArthur from his position as commander and brought him back home.
He rejected MacArthur's aggressive policy towards Communism. -
President changed to Eisenhower
Peace talks between North and South Korea began, but bitter fighting continued until when Truman was replaced by president Eisenhower who wanted to end the war. -
An armistice was finally signed.
