United Nations Radio presents the first of two specially recorded broadcasts

telling the Korea story and starring Dick Powell.

This evening everyone has the right to know how this war began, how it was waged and how it was stopped.

Chapter 1 of the Korea story.

Welcome to Blowback, I'm Brendan James and I'm Noah Cohen and this is episode 2, The Uninvited.

Last time as we do each season we took an overview in episode 1, took a general look at the place of the Korean War

in the United States' memory and culture.

Now in this episode we'll start to tell the story, trace this history of the Korean War.

But as listeners maybe used to by now, we will not start in June 1950 when the breakout of the war is usually dated.

We won't even start in 1950 at all or the year before that.

We won't even begin at the close of the second world war.

In fact, that's where this episode will end.

Yes, we'll start by going way back with a quick history of how Korea emerged as a kingdom,

grew into a single state and eventually became dominated by foreign powers.

We'll see the competition between Westerners and the Japanese to break into Korea.

A contest won by Japan which turns the Korean peninsula into a colony by the 20th century.

Of course, China was also a major influence here and we'll see how all three of these Asian nations,

Korea, China and Japan coped with the long hand of European and eventually American policy.

In particular, we'll see Imperial Japan's development with a focus on the economics of empire and how Korea paid the price.

We'll also look at how the United States in this same period began to expand its own empire,

beyond North America, acquiring territories in Asia and placing itself on track for competition with upstart powers like Germany and of course Japan.

These narratives merge in the climax of the second world war during which the future leaders of Korea struggled to resist Japan

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