Korean War (1945): Division at the 38th · 505

A 1950-53 peninsula war, still without a peace treaty, that fixed two Korean states and a US-ROK alliance. The Korean War began before dawn on 25 June 1950 when the Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel, the 1945 US-Soviet occupation line that had already produced two states in 1948: the Republic of Korea under Syngman Rhee and the Democratic People's Republic under Kim Il-sung. The UN Security Council, with the Soviet seat empty, created a US-led United Nations Command.

The front raced the length of the peninsula: the Pusan Perimeter, the 15 September 1950 Inchon landing, the UN drive to the Yalu, and Chinese People's Volunteer intervention from October 1950. Seoul changed hands four times. An armistice signed at Panmunjom on 27 July 1953 created the DMZ near the 38th parallel -- and no peace treaty has followed.

Scholarly estimates put Korean civilian deaths in a band of about 2-3 million, with ROK military deaths around 137,000 and US military deaths about 36,000; Chinese military deaths are often given in a wide 180,000-400,000 range. For Koreans it is 6-25, not a "forgotten war." For US, British, Australian, Canadian and other UN veterans it became the war between 1945 and Vietnam -- under-taught, heavily memorialised only later.