Park Chung-Hee

PARK CHUNG-HEE d1979. South Korean politician and army general who served as the leader of South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979. He ruled as a de facto military dictator from 1961 to 1963, then as the country's de jure third president from 1963 to 1979. Before his presidency, he was a military leader in the South Korean army and was the second-highest ranking officer in the army. He first came to power after leading a military coup in 1961 which brought an end to the interim government of the Second Republic. After serving for two years as chairman of the military junta, he was elected President in 1963, ushering in the Third Republic. Seeking to bring South Korea into the developed world, he began a series of economic policies that brought rapid economic growth and industrialization to the nation that eventually became known as the Miracle on The Han River. South Korea possessed one of the fastest growing national economies during the 1960s and 1970s as a result. Extreme poverty was reduced from 66.9 percent in 1961 to 11.2 percent in 1979, making one of the fastest and largest reductions in poverty in human history. This growth also encompassed declines in child mortality and increases in life expectancy. From 1961 to 1979 child mortality declined by 59%, this was the second fastest decrease in child mortality of any country with over 10 million inhabitants during the same period. He was assassinated in Seoul aged 61 on October 26th 1979