Park Chung-hee

Park Chung Hee was a South Korean politician and army officer who served as the third president of South Korea from 1962, after seizing power in the May 16 coup of 1961, until his assassination in 1979. His regime oversaw intense economic growth and transformation, making him one of the most consequential leaders in Korean history, though his legacy as a military dictator remains contentious; he maintained close ties with the United States and sent South Korean troops to fight in Vietnam, and his economic reforms led to rapid industrialization known as the Miracle on the Han River, establishing South Korea as one of the fastest-growing economies of the 1960s and 1970s. His popularity declined by the 1970s; in 1972 he declared martial law and introduced the authoritarian Yushin Constitution, and he was assassinated by KCIA director Kim Jae-gyu in 1979 following the Busan-Masan Uprising.