Kim Dae-jung

Kim Dae-jung (Korean: 김대중; pronounced [kim.dɛ.dʑuŋ]; 8 January 1924 – 18 August 2009) was a South Korean politician, activist, and statesman who served as the eighth president of South Korea from 1998 to 2003.

Originally an entrepreneur, Kim abandoned business and entered politics after the Korean War, becoming a member of the new wing of the Democratic Party. He was an opposition politician who carried out a democratization movement against the military dictatorship from the Third Republic in the 1960s to the Fifth Republic in the 1980s. He escaped death five times, spent six years in prison and ten years under house arrest and in exile. He was repeatedly imprisoned, exiled, almost murdered in a car accident, and sentenced to death by the military and political authorities. He ran unsuccessfully in presidential elections in 1971, 1987, and 1992. In the country's 15th presidential election in 1997, he defeated Grand National Party candidate Lee Hoi-chang through an alliance with Kim Jong-pil and the Democratic Liberal Party. Kim was the first opposition candidate to win the presidency. At the time of his inauguration in 1998, he was 74 years old, making him the oldest president in Korean history.