Today in Korean history

May 29

1960 -- Syngman Rhee, who resigned as South Korea's first president in April, goes into exile in Hawaii.

1968 -- Archbishop Stephen Kim Soo-hwan is appointed as head of Seoul's Catholic Archdiocese.

1972 -- The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization discovers the "Jikjisimgyeong," the world's oldest text printed with metal type, which was made in Korea in 1377, at a museum in Paris.

1979 -- Ko Sang-don, the first South Korean to reach the summit of Mount Everest, dies in an accident while climbing Mount McKinley in Alaska.

1984 -- The Promotion Council for Democracy, a nongovernmental political group, selects then opposition politicians Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam as its leaders. Because Kim Dae-jung was overseas, another politician, Kim Sang-hyun, was later appointed as the acting co-head of the group.

1988 -- Lawyers for a Democratic Society, called "Minbyun" in Korean, is established.

1998 -- Stephen Cardinal Kim resigns as head of the Catholic Seoul Archdiocese.

2000 -- President Kim Dae-jung holds a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in Seoul.

2003 -- The South Korean government reduces the mandatory military service period for South Korean men by two months to a total of two years. It also reduced the training period for reservists to one year.
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