Kim Dae-jung

Kim Dae-jung (; ; 6 January 192418 August 2009), often referred to by his initials DJ, was a South Korean politician and activist who served as the eighth president of South Korea from 1998 to 2003. He was a 2000 Nobel Peace Prize recipient for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea and Japan. He is also the only Korean to have won the Nobel Prize to date. He was sometimes referred to as "the Nelson Mandela of Asia". Kim was the first opposition candidate to win the presidency. Early life Kim Dae-Jung was born on 6 January 1924, but he later edited his birth date to 3 December 1925 to avoid conscription under Japanese colonial rule. Kim was the second of seven children. His father, Kim Un-sik, was a farmer. Kim was a 12th generation descendant of Kim Ik-soo (김익수;金益壽) who served as Second Minister of the Board of War (병조참판;兵曹參判) and the civil minister (문신;文臣) who involved at the construction of Gwansanggam during Joseon period. Ik-soo is the grandson of Kim Young-jeong (김영정;金永貞) of Gimhae Kim clan, this makes him a distant relative of Kim Jong-pil. Kim was born in Sinan County, South Jeolla in what was then South Jeolla Province; the city is now in Jeollanam-do. Kim's family had moved to the nearby port city of Mokpo so that he could finish high school. He had to change his name to Toyota Taichū (豊田大中) because of the passing of the sōshi-kaimei ordinance. Kim graduated from Mokpo Commercial Middle School in 1944, and worked as a clerk at a Japanese-managed shipping company. In 1945, Kim married his first wife Cha Yong-ae, going on to have two sons. After the Japanese defeat in World War II and the liberation of Korea, he was elected as the chairman of the company's management committee. In 1946, as newly liberated Korea debated how to govern themselves for the first time in 40 years, he joined a nationalist organization with both pro-Communist and anti-Communist members but left after disagreements with the pro-communists. However, this left him open to red-baiting from his political opponents in his future political career. In 1947, he bought a ship and started his own shipping company and in 1948, Kim became the publisher of a Mokpo daily newspaper. As the Korean War started in June 1950, Kim was on a business trip in Seoul. As he returned to Mokpo on foot, he was captured by North Korean communists and was sentenced to be shot, though he managed to escape.