Park Chung-hee: Difference between revisions

|occupation = President of South Korea (1963 - 1979)<br>Chairman of the [[Supreme Council for National Reconstruction]] (1961 - 1963)

|type of villain = Military Dictator

|skills = Military training<br>Political knowledge

{{Quote|We have been born into this land, charged with the historic mission of regenerating the nation.|Park Chung-hee, ''The Charter of National Education of Korea'', 1968}}

'''Park Chung-hee''' (Hangul: 박정희; Hanja: 朴正熙; 14 November 1917 – 26 October 1979) was a South Korean politician and general who served as the President of South Korea from 1963 until his assassination in 1979, assuming that office after first ruling the country as head of a military junta installed by the May 16 coup in 1961. Before his presidency, he was the chairman of the [[Supreme Council for National Reconstruction]] from 1961 to 1963 after a career as a military leader in the South Korean army. During [[World War II]], he served in the Manchukuo Imperial Army, which was a division of the armed forces of [[Imperial Japan]].

Park was born on 14 November 1917, in Gumi, North Gyeongsang in Korea under Japanese rule, to parents Park Sung-bin and Bek Nam-eui. He was the youngest of five brothers and two sisters in a poor Yangban family. Extremely intelligent, egotistic and ambitious, Park's hero from his boyhood on was [[Napoleon Bonaparte]], and he frequently expressed much disgust that he had to grow up in the poor and backward countryside of Korea, a place that was not suitable for someone like himself. Those who knew Park as a youth recalled that a recurring theme of his remarks was his wish to "escape" from the Korean countryside. As someone who had grown up under Japanese rule, Park often expressed his admiration for Japan's rapid modernization after the Meiji Restoration of 1867 and for Bushido ("the way of the warrior"), the Japanese warrior code.

Economic growth continued after Park's death and the country eventually democratized. Later presidents included his daughter [[Park Geun-hye]] as well as people arrested under Park's regime. Park is a controversial figure in modern South Korean political discourse and among the South Korean populace in general for his dictatorship and undemocratic ways. While some credit him for sustaining the Miracle on the Han River, which reshaped and modernized South Korea, others criticize his authoritarian way of ruling the country (especially after 1971) and for prioritizing economic growth and contrived social order at the expense of civil liberties.

[[Category:Political]]

[[Category:Deceased]]

[[Category:Blackmailers]]

[[Category:God Wannabe]]

[[Category:On & Off Villains]]

[[Category:Anti - Villain]]

[[Category:Thugs]]

[[Category:Military]]

[[Category:Execution]]

[[Category:Scapegoat]]

[[Category:Cult Leader]]