10 Facts About the Korean War

- On September 1949 the Communists defeated the Nationalists and Mao Zedong became head of the state but instead he fled to the island Taiwan.
- Many Americans were shocked by the fall of the Nationalist government and viewed it as a part of a Communist plot to governement.
-In June of 1950, North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea starting the conflict known as the Korean War.
-The United States appealed to the UN to stop Communism move into South Korea, so U.S troops made up most of the force and did most of the fighting.
- The infamous General Douglas MacArthur who served as World War II hero in the Pacific served as the commander of all UN forces.
- Towards the beginning of the war, the North Koreans pushed the South Koreans back almost to Pusan.-MacArthur decided to reverse the situation by landing his troops at Inchon (a port city behind the North Korean lines), which was a dangerous plan that eventually worked.
- As a result China saw the movement of the UN forces in North Korea as a threat to China's security, and as a result Chinese leaders warned that a further advance would force them to enter the war.
- On November 25, 1950 hundreds of thousands of Chinese Communist troops attacked in human waves across the Yalu river into North Korea.
- As a result MacArthur asked permission to blockade China's coastline and bomb them, but Truman refused. Truman decided to fire MacArthur because of all the crtism he recieved from him.