An Jung-geun
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An Jung-geun (September 2, 1879 - March 26, 1910) (Christian name: Thomas) was the Korean man who assassinated the Japanese politician Ito Hirobumi, the former Resident-General of Korea. His first commitment for his country was made in the field of education, but later he changed direction and joined the armed resistance for justice. He is regarded as a hero in South Korea while North Koreans think his act led the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910.
An Jung-geun, who had previously led Korean forces fighting against the Japanese, assassinated Ito Hirobumi on the railway platform in Harbin (Manchuria) in 1910. He was captured and sentenced to death. The execution took place in Lui-shun prison.
An had cut off parts of several of his fingers and used the resulting blood to write "Korean Independence" on the Korean national flag. Beginning in the earliest part of the Japanese occupation, armed resistance movements sprang up across the country.
He is commemorated in the martial art of Tae Kwon-Do and the pattern which is dedicated to him is called Joon Gun. There are 32 movements in this pattern which signifies his age when he died (though actually he was 30).
His age of 32 when he died is correct in Korean age. Using this method, each year the person is alive is counted, and it's incremented at the lunar New Year. So if you count every year from 1879 through 1910, including the beginning and ending years, he was indeed 32 when he died. This is different from the way Western birthdays are calculated, where it is incremented only on their birthdate.
An Jung-geun in popular culture
In the science-fiction movie, 2009 Lost Memories, An Jung-geun is prevented from assassinating Hirobumi and the resulting cascading effect in the timeline later causes Japan to win World War II as an ally of the United States.
External links
- IMDB page for 2009 Lost Memories (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294252/)
- [1] (http://www.cbck.or.kr/eng/ccik/history_07.htm#3)