(Source)
Six American soldiers ran to North Korea in 1962 and have lived there since then.
"I was fed up with my childhood, my marriage, my military life,
everything. I was a goner. There's only one place to go," said James
Dresnok, the last US defector alive in North Korea. In August 1962, he
stepped into the minefield and crossed over to North Korea.
Soon
after his arrival, Dresnok met Larry Allen Abshier, another American
defector. Eventually, there were four of them: Abshier, Jerry Parrish,
Charles Robert Jenkins, and Dresnok. The men lived together and
participated in several propaganda efforts on behalf of the North Korean
government. They appeared on
magazine covers
and used loudspeakers to try to persuade more American soldiers at the
border to defect. However, at first they did not wish to remain in North
Korea indefinitely. In 1966, the four men tried to leave North Korea by
seeking asylum at the Soviet embassy in Pyongyang, but were immediately
turned over to North Korean authorities by the embassy. Afterwards,
Dresnok decided to settle in North Korea and assimilate. He married a
couple of times and is currently in failing health.
(Source)
North Korea is the world's only nation to currently have a captured U.S. Navy ship.
On January 23, 1968, in international waters more than 15 miles from
North Korea, the USS Pueblo, an electronic intelligence ship, was
surrounded by sub chasers and torpedo boats, with MiG jets overhead. The
sailors on the Pueblo were rounded up and put in prison camps. While
the North produced propaganda footage showing fair treatment, the
reality was much worse. The crew endured starvation and torture for
nearly a year.
Eventually, the North Korean government decided to
release all crew members. The Pueblo is still held by North Korea and
remains the second-oldest
commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy.
()
North Korea is officially NOT Communist anymore.
In 2009, references to Communism were removed from the country's
constitution, and "Juche" became the official state ideology, replacing
Marxism–Leninism, when the country adopted a
new constitution
in 1972. Created by Kim Il-sung, it states that the Korean masses are
the masters of the country's development, with an emphasis on political,
economic and defensive self-sustainability.
(Source)
It's not 2013 in North Korea. The year is 102!
The Juche Calendar was introduced in 1997 and is based on Kim Il Sung's
date of birth: April 15, 1912. This year is referred to as Juche 1 and
the system works forward from there, while it maintains the Gregorian
Calendar's traditional months and the number of days in a month.
(Source)
North Korea hosts the World's Largest Stadium, seating 150,000 people.
Currently used for
football and athletic matches, but most often for Arirang performances --a.k.a. "the Mass Games"-- the
May Day Stadium can seat 150,000, the largest of its kind.
Located
in Pyongyang, it was finished in 1989. In the late 1990s, a number of
North Korean army generals implicated in an assassination attempt on Kim
Jong-il were executed via burning in the stadium.
(Source)
In 2012, North Korean archaeologists announced to the world that they "discovered" the resting place of a UNICORN
In November 2012, North Korean archaeologists claimed to discover a
mythical unicorn lair belonging to King Tongmyong, founder of the
ancient Korean kingdom. The announcement was made by the History
Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences, which reported that
the lair was found 220 yards from a temple in Pyongyang. "A rectangular
rock carved with words 'Unicorn Lair' stands in front of the lair. The
carved words are believed to date back to the period of Koryo Kingdom
(918-1392)," the report said. "The temple served as a relief palace for
King Tongmyong, in which there is the lair of his unicorn."
(Source)
There are 51 "Social Categories" ranked by their loyalty to the regime.
Based on political, social, and economic background for direct ancestors
as well as behavior by relatives, the "Songbun" --a North Korean system
of ascribed status-- is used to determine whether an individual is
trusted with responsibility, given opportunities within North Korea, or
even receives adequate food. Songbun affects access to educational and
employment opportunities and, particularly, whether a person is eligible to join North Korea's ruling party, the Workers' Party of Korea.
(Source)
On the border, there's a GHOST city to encourage South Koreans to enter.
According to the Korean government, the village of Kijongdong, located
in the North's half of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), contains a
200-family collective farm, serviced by a childcare center,
kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, and a
hospital. However, observation from the South suggests that it's actually a
ghost town, created to encourage South Korean defection. Until 2004, massive loudspeakers mounted on several of
the buildings
continuously delivered DPRK propaganda broadcasts relating the North's
virtues in great detail and urging disgruntled soldiers and farmers to
simply walk across the border to be received as brothers. Eventually, as
its value in inducing defections proved minimal, the content was
switched to condemnatory anti-Western speeches, Communist agitprop
operas, and patriotic marching music for
up to 20 hours a day.
(Source)
For 20 years, the world's tallest hotel was a 105-story empty pyramid in Pyongyang.
With 105 floors, the Ryugyong Hotel was designed to be the world's
tallest hotel at the end of the 80s, but the construction was halted in
1992 as the country entered a period of economic crisis after the fall
of the Soviet Union.
Japanese newspapers estimated the cost of
the hotel at $750 million, which is 2% of North Korea's GDP. For over a
decade, the unfinished building sat vacant and without windows,
fixtures, or fittings, appearing as a massive concrete shell. In the
late 1990s, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea inspected
the building and concluded that the structure was "irreparable."
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