Today in Korean history

June 8

1953 -- The U.N. Command signs a treaty with the North Korean and Chinese forces to exchange prisoners captured during the 1950-53 Korean War. The parties signed an armistice in July that year.

1967 -- South Korea's seventh general elections take place. The ruling Democratic Republic Party earned a majority in the National Assembly by winning 50.6 percent of the vote.

2000 -- President Kim Dae-jung attends the funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi during his visit to Tokyo and holds summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and U.S. President Bill Clinton after the ceremony.

2006 -- France agrees to lease to South Korea a collection of Korean royal texts that were looted by French forces in 1866 from an archive of Korea's Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). The texts are now being kept at France's national library in Paris, but Seoul wants them to be returned.

2009 -- North Korea's highest court sentences two detained U.S. journalists to 12 years in labor camps for a "grave crime" and illegal entry.

2010 -- Samsung Electronics Co., the world's No. 2 handset maker, discloses a new smartphone, the Galaxy S, in South Korea in an attempt to develop it into a competitor to Apple Inc.'s iconic iPhone.

2011 -- South Korea's chief nuclear envoy heads to China to discuss ways to revive nuclear disarmament negotiations with North Korea, including a three-step approach calling for inter-Korean dialogue as a first step toward resuming the negotiations.

2012 -- North Korea announces it will field 49 athletes in 11 sports at the London Summer Olympics.

2013 -- South and North Korea appoint their delegations for working-level talks at the truce village of Panmunjom to arrange their first Cabinet minister-level meeting in six years.

2016 -- South Korea's government and central bank announce they will jointly create a 12 trillion-won (US$11 billion) recapitalization fund to help creditor banks rehabilitate the nation's debt-stricken shipping and shipbuilding companies.

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