Seoul: A group of college professors has publicly accused the autocratic government of President Rhee Syng-man of utilizing the police force to suppress pro-democracy student protesters. This accusation follows the tragic events of April 19, 1960, where several hundred students were killed or injured during clashes, sparking nationwide protests against the government. Eventually, Rhee was compelled to resign and went into self-imposed exile in Hawaii.

According to Yonhap News Agency, in 1965, South Korea established diplomatic relations with Bolivia, marking a significant step in its international relations. Further expanding its global communication network, South Korea established international phone service with the Soviet Union in 1979.

In 1989, a significant court ruling in Seoul sentenced Kim Hyun-hee, a self-confessed North Korean agent, to death for the bombing of a Korean Air Lines jetliner near Myanmar, an attack that resulted in the loss of 115 lives onboard. The death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, and she was eventually released under amnesty, as the government concluded she had been manipulated by the North's communist regime.

The year 2007 witnessed North Korean leader Kim Jong-il inspecting a massive military parade in Pyongyang, marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of North Korea's armed forces. Two years later, in 2009, North Korea announced the resumption of plutonium extraction from spent fuel rods at its major nuclear facility. This declaration came as a response to U.N. sanctions following North Korea's April 5 rocket launch.

In 2010, an investigation team, co-chaired by Yoon Duk-yong, determined that a "non-contact external explosion" was the likely cause of the mysterious sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan near the border with North Korea. Initial wreckage inspections suggested that the explosion occurred below the ship, rather than from a direct hit.

In a notable 2014 court decision, a Seoul appeals court upheld a lower court ruling, acquitting political defector Yoo Woo-seong of espionage charges. Yoo, who had Chinese nationality and lived in North Korea, was embroiled in a forgery case where Seoul's intelligence agency was found to have fabricated Chinese documents to incriminate him.

In 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok, aiming to strengthen ties with Moscow amidst stalled nuclear talks with the U.S. Most recently, in 2022, North Korea conducted a military parade in Pyongyang to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, an anti-Japanese guerilla force founded by Kim Il-sung in 1932.