Kim Il-sung

Kim Song Ju was born in Japanese-ruled Korea on 15 April 1912 and grew up in northeast China, where he joined anti-Japanese guerrilla groups as a teenager and the Chinese Communist Party in 1931. He fought with CCP-led units until 1942, when he was assigned to the Soviet Red Army and remained in the Soviet Union until 1945. After Japan's surrender and Korea's division, the Soviets installed him in the North, and in 1948 he established the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. He authorized the invasion of South Korea in 1950, triggering a United Nations intervention led by the United States;…