KOREAN WAR

KOREAN WAR

With both leaders claiming jurisdiction over the entire Korean Peninsula, tensions soon reached a breaking point. In 1950, with the backing of the Soviet Union and China, North Korean forces invaded South Korea, setting off the Korean War. The United States came to the South’s aid, leading an army of some 340,000 United Nations troops in opposing the invasion. After three years of bitter fighting and more than 2.5 million military and civilian casualties, both sides signed an armistice in the Korean War in July 1953. The agreement left the borders of North and South Korea essentially unchanged, with a heavily guarded demilitarized zone about 2.5 miles wide running roughly along the 38th parallel. A formal peace treaty, however, was never signed.