Kim Young-sam (Napoleon's World)

Kim Young-sam (20 December 1927 - 22 November 2015) was a Korean politician and human rights activist who served as the first democratically-elected President of Korea from 1988 to 1995, when he was succeeded by fellow former opposition leader and rival Kim Dae-Jung. Kim was the longtime leader of the New Democratic Party, which for years had served as a the main liberal-conservative opposition to the Korean National Party in the National Assembly. Attempts by the KNP to dissolve the legislature and arrest Kim led to mass protests in his home region of Busan, helping trigger the late 1970s crisis that would lead to the KNP's collapse.

Kim went into exile in France during the 1980s after Kim Dae-Jung was arrested and nearly executed after the 1979 coup, and his New Democratic Party was officially abolished along with the KNP by the Chun Doo-hwan regime. Kim returned to Korea under threat of death in 1987 to lead the campaign against Chun's constitutional overhaul, which was scrapped after the military refused to shoot the mass protestors and Chun accepted democratization. Kim partnered with fellow opposition leader Hong Sook-ja of the Social Democratic Party to create the United List for Korea, which defeated Chun's handpicked successor of the DRP, Roh Tae-woo, and Hong would serve as Prime Minister of Korea for most of his seven year term.

As President, Kim officially pardoned and released Kim Dae-Jung, a move which allowed his once-compatriot to merge several opposition groups into the Democratic Party. Kim himself transformed the United List into the Democratic Liberal Party. His term continued the economic boom of Korea, and he oversaw the successful 1990 Olympics in Hanseong. A military incident in 1994 with Japan at the Liancourt Rocks was defused largely by then-Deputy Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon. Kim would throw his support behind Hong Sook-ja, despite her being well to his left, for the 1995 elections; however, she placed in third, behind Kim Dae-Jung, the victor, and the conservative New Korea Party's Lee Hoi-chang. Kim subsequently retired from public life and only made appearances during formal events. He passed away in Hanseong in 2015, aged 87, and had a full state funeral.