North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan (also known as the East Sea) on April 8, marking its second launch event in just two days, according to South Korea’s military. The launches came hours after a senior North Korean official ridiculed Seoul’s renewed hopes for warmer relations, further straining already fragile ties on the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles were launched from the eastern coastal city of Wonsan, with several traveling about 150 miles (240 km). Another missile fired later in the day flew more than 435 miles (700 km) off the North’s east coast. Officials added that the military remains on high alert. The launches are just the latest chapter in a long history of tense relations between North and South Korea, a conflict that dates back to the division of the peninsula following the Korean War.
The Korean War occurred widely out of the eyes of the global public, receiving little media attention in the United States and very little protest from its people. On the Korean Peninsula, however, war was all-encompassing.
The superpowers of the Cold War used North and South Korea's fight for unification to further their own aspirations of global hegemony, at the cost of millions of lives. Global ignorance regarding the true events of the Korean War persists today, as it remains in the shadows of the infamous wars that preceded and succeeded it. It's time for a history lesson. Read on if you want to know more about the Korean War.