Kim Ku

Born in 1876 to a farming family in Hwanghae Province, Kim Ku joined the Donghak Peasant Revolution at eighteen. Two years later he killed a Japanese man he believed was tied to the empress's assassination - historians now think the victim was a merchant - and escaped from prison in 1898. After a stint as a Buddhist monk, he became a Christian teacher in 1903, then spent 1911 to 1914 in prison again over the 105-Man Incident. He helped found the Korean Provisional Government during the March First Movement in 1919 and served as its president from 1926 to 1927 and again from 1940, leading from exile in China while also founding the Korean Liberation Army. After Japan's surrender he returned in 1945 and immediately clashed with Syngman Rhee and the U.S. occupation, opposing any permanent partition. In 1948 he went to Pyongyang against American wishes to negotiate unity with Kim Il Sung, failed, and was assassinated the next year by an army officer - months before the war that cemented the split.