North Korea History 

The Korean Peninsula has been inhabited for 100,000 years early Kingdom established an incredibly. Strong Korean military presence in East Asia that was able to keep Russia Mongolia and China from invading fast-forward to the 1st century AD. They were united and there's some really powerful dynasties until 1897 when the Korean Empire was established. Things are getting spicy however the Korean Empire didn't last long because in 1910 Japan invaded the peninsula and took over everything. 

They were terrible and suppressed Korean traditions in the language and only ran the economy to benefit themselves. Naturally, the Korean people. Weren't exactly agree with this and there was a lot of guerilla warfare to try and kick the Japanese out. One of those guerrillas was a guy named Kim Ho sang but more in him later things were pretty peachy for the Japanese until the end of World War 2 when they were finally kicked out that's.

When the peninsula was divided into two parts. The United States supported the capitalist South and the Soviet Union supported the communist north. Whatever reason that never seems to end well the northerners weren't exactly happy about this arrangement. So they invaded the south and that's when the Korean War started and was devastating for everyone involved since more than 3 million people ended up dying in just three short years. The war eventually ended in 1953 and North and South Korea was internationally recognized as two different countries separated by the Demilitarized Zone.

Ironically it quickly became the most militarized zone in the history of the world. Surprisingly life of the North Korean people wasn't that bad, immediately following the war. They were better off than the South Korean people in the 60s and 70s since Kim Il-sung was best buds with Stalin and at a ton of Soviet resources to help boost the economy. Unsurprisingly though not all of those resources were used to boost the economy. Kim eun-sun was super interested in nuclear power and used the Soviets only to do a bunch of research development and tests this. 

Naturally wasn't exactly with the rest of the world so the UN has them to stop and North Korea said no. Then the UN asked again and North Korea said maybe and then no okay back to the North Korean people. Even though they were doing better economically for the first 20 years of division. They were also losing their individualism and freedom. Kim il-sung was a bit of a narcissist and so keep d cult of personality in place means everyone has to worship.

The dear leader and anyone who doesn't violently punish also. He was the guy who established the juju which is the ideology that North Korea should be miss independent to be entirely self-sustaining and not accept any help from anyone. Ever except of course from China in the Soviet Union. Why can probably guess this ideology didn't exactly work out and the economy started to plateau and decline in the late 80s and then took a complete nosedive in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.

 A few years later Kim Wilson conveniently kicked the bucket in the Sun Kim jong-il took over as the narcissist in charge. He was more than ready to take on. The row King jungle was just as bad as his father. The mid90s ended up being a rough time for North Korea. There was a ton of flooding which decimated their crops and led to a famine that killed anywhere from a quarter-million to three-and-a-half million people.

The situation was so bad that the Dear Leader had to accept large quantities of food aid from the United Nations in the 21st century. Things became mildly better for the North Korean people but not much well. The family was over people still struggled to get enough to eat since the government underpaid most of its citizens and gave them very little freedom in choosing a career. In 2011 Kim Jong Il died and his son Kim Jong-un took over.

This guy who's best pals with Dennis Rodman what just like his ancestors Kim's a big fan of nuclear weapons and threatening the West with him. But he did something none of them were able to accomplish. He meant with both the president of South Korea and the President of the United States of America during the meetings. They reportedly talked about unifying the Koreas and throwing out all the nukes but sadly not a lot came from those meetings.

For now, North Korea remains one of the most repressive states in the entire world and has continuously ranked as one of the worst human rights violators. They don't allow their citizens to travel freely within the country, they imprison people for the most arbitrary offenses and they rely on forced labor to keep their economy. Running things are so bad that an ever-growing North Korean refugee population in South Korea alone. there are over 31,000 North Korean refugees living and working in what is to them a completely different world.