This thread had been drowned and lying on the ocean floor for a long time. I am trying to rescue it and put it on top of Everest only today. We shall travel to Korea today and delve into its past while trying to speculating about its future at the same time. Starting from three ancient kingdoms of Silla, Goguryeo, and Baekje having similar linguistic and ethnic backgrounds in around 668 AD, Korea saw the ruler of the Yi Dynasty move capital to Seoul in 1394 and adopt Confucianism as the state religion. Japanese and the Manchus tried to invade Korea in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, Korea tried to prevent the Japanese and western invasion and closed the country, gaining the name Hermit Kingdom. Japan finally annexed Korea in 1910 following the Russo-Japanese war. Although building infrastructures during its reign, Japan ruled Korea with an iron fist, converting Koreans into Shinto and banning Korean languages at schools. After the defeat of Japan at World War II, the USSR captured north part of Korea after the 38th parallel while the democratic forces led by US took the south. On June 25, 1950, the communist North Korea, back by Chines forces attacked South Korea and the war went on for three years, leaving millions of dead. The Korean peninsula is still a high war risk zone, with suspicion of North Korea's nuclear programs and its military size. With the waning of communism, North Korea has lost its support and strength. In hundred years from now, there is hope that the two Koreas will be united, which have same language, culture and ethnicity, just opposite idealogies.