a Japanese protectorate, and in 1910 it was annexed and became part of the Japanese Empire.
To 20th century Koreans, their country's subjugation as a colony of Japan seemed the cruelest of the many blows Korea has suffered. The efforts of all prior governments to preserve Korean autonomy had failed. Korea lay supine and subject to harsh Japanese rule. Nevertheless, something remained of the past heritage and some gains were made under the Japanese. Japan did much to modernize Korea even though this was done merely to modernize Korea, even though this was done merely to integrate the area into the Japanese Empire and to make it a strong jumping-off point for the later Japanese invasions of Manchuria and China proper. While Korea served primarily as a source of raw materials for Japan, agriculture and irrigation were greatly improved, lands reclaimed, and roads, railroads and harbors were built. A modern infrastructure was begun, and Japanese rule brought unaccustomed efficiency and a stability that had not been known in the peninsula for almost a century.
Despite economic gains, heavy-handed Japanese rule and subordination of Korean interests to those of Japan produced a chronic discontent that gave birth to a modern nationalist movement. The high point of this largely peaceful movement was a massive demonstration of 1 March 1919—Samil Day—now a great national holiday, inspired by Woodrow Wilson's principle of national self-determination. It was brutally repressed, and henceforth opposition to Japanese rule was largely organized by Korean refugees in the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. One such refugee, Dr. Syngman Rhee (Yi Sung-man), schooled both in the Korean classics and at Harvard and Princeton, became head of a Provisional Korean Government abroad in 1919. He finally returned to Korea in 1945 and became the first President of the Republic of (South) Korea in 1948 under a constitution establishing a strong presidential form of government. He seemed a natural choice as Korea's foremost patriot, being a descendant (distant) of the last reigning family and possessing the proper Confucian credentials.
Unfortunately for the fate of Korean democracy, Syngman Rhee fell too easily into the old monarchical pattern, and after the Korean war he grew increasingly despotic in advanced age. He was forced to resign in April 1960 after arbitrary and fraudulent elections had sparked a nationwide "student revolution" which the military quieted but refused to quell. A caretaker government produced a revised constitution for the "Second Republic" that changed the form of government from the presidential to the parliamentary type and carried through the most democratic elections in ROK history. Under Prime Minister Chang Myon (John M. Chang), the experiment in parliamentary democracy proved short lived. Chang was overturned in May 1961 by a cabal of "young colonels," and Maj. Gen. Pal Chong-hui became head of the junta's Supreme Council for National Reconstruction. In 1963 Pak was formally elected President of the "Third Republic," and South Korea reverted, in theory at least, to civilian, constitutional government.
