Today in Korean history

Oct. 16

1945 -- Dr. Rhee Syng-man returns home after decades of exile in the United States, two months after Japan's surrender at the end of World War II and the end of its colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula. Rhee is elected South Korea's first president three years later.

1999 -- A 160-member advance team of the South Korean Army's Evergreen Unit arrives in East Timor as part of U.N. peacekeeping operations. East Timor was occupied by Indonesia in 1975 and becomes an independent state in 2002.

2000 -- South Korea and the U.S., at a regular military meeting in Washington, agree on the extension of the range of South Korean-made missiles to 300 kilometers.

2008 -- Crew members of a South Korean-flagged vessel are released after being captured by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, sandwiched between Somalia and Yemen, on Sept. 10 of that year. The boat carried 22 crew members -- eight South Koreans and 14 Burmese.

2013 -- Nine foreign crew members are killed after a Panamanian-registered cargo ship, named the CHENG LUI 15, sinks off the eastern coast of South Korea. The 8,461-ton vessel, carrying 19 sailors -- 18 Chinese and one Vietnamese -- goes down 900 meters off the southeastern port of Pohang.
(END)