How did korea get divided at the 38th parallel?
At the end of WWII both Russia and the United States entered Korea to acept the surrender of the Japanese. The State Department chose the 38th parallel to keep the two sides apart. Their reasoning was that this avoided the two sides clashing, not wanting the Russians to have to pull back from land they had taken, and wanting Seoul to be in US control. The problem was you can see Seoul from the line and there’s no real geographical landmass there.
