Korea timeline

June 25

North Korea invades South Korea with 135,000 men, initiating the Korean War. United Nations Secretary-General Trygve Lie comments, "This is war against the United Nations."

June 27

President Harry S. Truman orders the Navy and Air Force to help South Korea and deploys the 7th Fleet to waters off Taiwan to prevent the spread of the conflict to other Far East waters.

North Korean forces capture Seoul.

18 U.S. B-26 Invaders bomb Heijo Airfield near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

First U.S. infantry unit arrives in Korea.

Off Chumunjin, on Korea's east coast, the USS Juneau helps destroy three of four attacking North Korean torpedo boats.

Battle of Osan. First U.S. ground action of the war.

Fifty-seven Army nurses arrive in Pusan, Korea. They helped establish a hospital for the wounded. Two days later, on July 8, 12 Army nurses moved forward with a mobile Army surgical hospital, or MASH, to Taejon.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur is appointed supreme commander of U.N. Command in Korea.

Allied troops stopped the deepest Communist advance, at the Pusan Perimeter in southeastern South Korea.

Althea Gibson, a 22-year-old Florida A&M student, is accepted into the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association and will play in the U.S. tennis championships.

U.S. government seizes railroads to avert a nationwide strike.

U.S. and allied forces land U.S. Marines and Army troops at Inchon.

U.S. and allies retake Seoul on Sept. 27 after a week of fighting.

Chou En-lai, foreign minister of China, warns, "The Chinese people will not supinely tolerate seeing their neighbors being savagely invaded by the imperialists."

Yankees win the World Series in four straight over the Phillies.

FCC authorizes CBS to begin commercial color TV broadcasts.

The Allies capture Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.

Communist Chinese forces launch their first offensive of the war.

A day after anti-U.S. nationalists start an uprising in San Juan, Puerto Rico, two Puerto Ricans attempt to assassinate President Truman.

First all-jet combat in history. An F-80 shoots down a MiG-15 fighter in a 30-second dogfight.

Truman declares that the United States has no intention to invade China.

Blizzards kill 250 people across the United States.

Truman declares the United States would use the atomic bomb to get peace in Korea.

In a third Chinese offensive, 500,000 enemy troops push U.N. forces 50 miles south of the 38th Parallel and recapture Seoul.

Arabian American Oil Co. agrees to share profits with the Saudi Arabian government.

French troops defeat Viet Minh guerrillas threatening to overrun Hanoi, Vietnam.

Battle of Chipyong-ni. First mass assault by Chinese troops is contained by allied forces.

An unprecedented 861-day naval operation, the blockade of Wonsan Harbor - the longest effective siege of a port in U.S. Navy history - begins.

Operation Ripper drives the Communists back to the 38th Parallel and retakes Seoul.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are found guilty of spying; they will be sentenced to death.

President Truman relieves MacArthur, who had challenged the president's foreign policy, as supreme commander of U.N. forces and replaces him with Gen. Matthew Ridgway.

War's first major aerial duel. More than 40 MiG-15s attack a B-29 bomber formation, shooting down two bombers. Eleven of the MiGs are destroyed, seven by B-29 gunners.

In the largest single battle of the Korean War, the Chinese forces launch their spring offensive with 250,000 men. Five U.S. Army divisions participate.

AT&T announces it has 1-million stockholders, a first in the United States.

Four U.S. divisions counter the Chinese second spring offensive.

Battle for the Punchbowl. The 1st Marine Division encounters heavy North Korean resistance, but succeeds in taking its objective.

Univac I, the first commercially built computer, goes into operation at the Census Bureau in Philadelphia.

Korean War truce talks begin in Kaesong.

Jordan's King Abdullah assassinated.

Battle of Bloody Ridge. The 15th Field Artillery Battalion sets a record by firing 14,425 rounds in 24 hours.

The 2nd Infantry Division seizes Heartbreak Ridge.

A Streetcar Named Desire, with Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, debuts.

Yankees win the series over the Giants.

Winston Churchill returns as Britain's prime minister.

The first section of the New Jersey Turnpike, 51 miles, opens.

In the Korean truce talks, the two sides agree on the 38th Parallel as the line of demarcation and almost immediately military operations slow down.

L.A. Rams defeat Cleveland Browns 24-17 for football title.

President Truman denounces Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy as pathological, untruthful and a character assassin.

England's King George VI dies. He is succeeded by his 25-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.

New York City installs four walk/don't walk signals in Times Square. The city also plans to install traffic lights with three colors, adding amber to reduce accidents.

Gen. Fulgencio Batista regains power in Cuba after a coup d'etat against President Carlos Prio Socarras.

Tornadoes leave 200 dead and 2,500 hurt in Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi.

1-million people watch a Nevada atomic bomb test on television.

Gen. Mark Clark replaces Gen. Ridgway as supreme commander of the U.N. forces.

East Germany technically closes doors to outsiders.

Egypt's King Farouk is deposed in a military coup.

Dwight D. Eisenhower wins the Republican nomination for president.

The Democrats pick Adlai E. Stevenson for their presidential ticket.

In Argentina, Eva Peron dies.

Battle for Old Baldy.

Massive airstrikes against North Korea's hydroelectric power grid cause an almost complete blackout for more than two weeks.

The Olympic Games open in Helsinki, Finland.

Battle of Bunker Hill.

War's largest air raid. Allied planes bomb Pyongyang in a 1,403-sortie assault - the largest single-day raid of the war.

At Outpost Kelly, the 65th Infantry Regiment (3rd Infantry Division) is besieged by the Chinese.

GOP vice presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon gives his "Checkers" speech.

Yankees take third series in a row, defeating the Dodgers in the final game.

Operation Showdown: Battle of Hill 598, also known as Sniper Ridge.

Battle of the Hook.

The hydrogen bomb is exploded by the Atomic Energy Commission at Eniwetok atoll in the South Pacific.

Eisenhower elected president; John F. Kennedy is elected to the Senate.

Albert Schweitzer is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

T-Bone Hill. The 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, repels Chinese forces during an intense battle.

Lions defeat the Browns 17-7 to take the football title.

Operation Smack, an assault on Spud Hill by elements of the 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division.

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin dies four days after a brain hemorrhage. He was 73.

Hill 355, also known as Little Gibraltar, held by the 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, is assaulted by Chinese.

A polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk is tested successfully in 90 adults and children.

Outposts known by the names of Nevada cities (Vegas, Reno, Carson), held by the 5th Marine Regiment, come under heavy attack. A Chinese regiment is destroyed.

The first issue of TV Guide is published.

Battle of Pork Chop Hill. The 17th and 31st Infantry Regiments, 7th Infantry Division, hit hard and suffer heavy casualties.

Operation Little Switch exchanges sick and wounded POWs, including 149 Americans.

Drs. James Watson and Francis Crick propose the double-helix structure for DNA.

Ernest Hemingway wins a Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.

President Eisenhower signs a bill surrendering federal ownership of $80-billion of offshore oil and gas reserves to oil corporations.

U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles says if the Viet Minh defeat the French in Indochina, the rest of Southeast Asia will fall like dominoes under Soviet domination.

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Tornadoes kill 139 in the Midwest. The next day, 92 are killed in New England storms.

The USS Princeton launches 184 sorties, a single-day Korean War record for offensive sorties flown from a carrier.

Far East Air Force F-86 Sabre jets destroy 16 MiGs, the largest number shot down in one day.

Battle of Pork Chop Hill. The 7th Infantry Division is ordered to evacuate its defensive positions after five days of fighting.

Chinese forces launch a six-division attack in the Battle of Kumsong River Salient.

Final U.S. ground combat. A heavy enemy attack is launched in the Berlin Complex ("Boulder City") area held by the 7th and 1st Marine Regiments. The last Marine ground actions of the war are fought on Hills 111 and 119.

Last air kill of the war. F-86 pilot downs an enemy transport near the Manchurian border.

The armistice is signed by Lt. Gen. Nam Il and Lt. Gen. William Harrison at 10 a.m. at Panmunjom. Twelve hours later, the guns fall silent.

Exchange of prisoners, known as Operation Big Switch, begins.

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