About The Korean War

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The United States of America played a huge role in the Korean War's outcome. The year was 1950 when the War started, and our president was President Truman. We had just ended World War II and the U.S. was considered to be one of the world's super powers.

North Korea (the communists) attacking South Korea on June 25, 1950, came as a big surprise to the United Nations. Communism was a big threat, and because Truman was a Democrat, he felt great pressure from the country to not take it lightly. The North Koreans had two things going in their favor at first: the element of surprise and the amount of manpower they had. When the United Nations met (The USSR was not there), they were all in agreement of support for South Korea. However, most of the manpower and weaponry did come from the United States.

With the support from the United States, South Korea had at least a little more of a fighting chance. Although the U.S. going over there was a huge help to South Korea, there were still battles that were lost. Once the U.S. started to win a few and push North Korea back up into their territory, China got nervous about the War coming to their country and started to fight as an ally with North Korea.

All in all, when the war ended three years later in 1953, 4 million people had died. Over 50,000 of those lives were Americans. Eisenhower, who was a Republican, was in office and decided to end the war, basically as a draw. This was the first War that the United States did not win. It also was the first of many wars to come that could be classified as "Cold Wars".

The Korean War ended July 27, 1953, with a signing of the Panmunjom Peace Treaty. The War was considered a stale mate, but to this day we keep a lot of American troops over in South Korea, just to make sure the Treaty is withheld and that the South Koreans have protection.

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