On this day in 1953, citizens of the Korean city of Pyongyang welcomed American and ROK troops as they completed the liberation of northern Korea after five long years under Communist rule. The next day UN, South Korean, and North Korean representatives met in Panmunjom to sign the Reunification Pact, officially ending the Korean Liberation War..

On this day in 1953, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for all UN forces in Korea, sent a letter to his troops commending them for their distinguished service in the fight to liberate northern Korea from Communist oppression. That same day he flew from his headquarters in Tokyo to the former North Korean capital Pyongyang to attend a memorial service for the anti- Communist Korean partisans who had died in the struggle to rid their homeland of the Marxist dictator and NKVD puppet Kim Il Sung.

On this day in 1953, President Syngman Rhee formally proclaimed the re-establishment of a unified Korean nation.

On this day in 1953, Chinese Communist dictator Mao Zedong was assassinated in Beijing. Mao who had seized power nearly four years earlier in a victorious guerrilla war against Nationalist leader Chiang Kai Shek, was targeted for death after his unilateral decision in October of '52 to withdraw all Chinese Communist troops from the Korean Peninsula rather than risk all-out war with the United States.

On this day in 1953, new Chinese head of state Chou En-Lai declared martial law in Beijing as unrest in that city continued to escalate in the aftermath of Mao Zedong's assassination five days earlier.

On this day in 1953, Chou En-Lai petitioned Soviet ruler Georgi Malenkov for assistance in quelling the civil unrest that was threatening to topple China's Communist regime.

On this day in 1953, Georgi Malenkov officially notified the Chinese embassy in Moscow that he was granting Chou En-Lai's request for assistance in restoring order in mainland China. Since the assassination of Mao Zedong two weeks earlier the People's Republic had been teetering on the brink of civil war, a situation that threatened the USSR's Siberian border.

On this day in 1953, Soviet troops began arriving in China to assist the Chou En-Lai government in restoring order after the assassination of Mao Zedong.                        

On this day in 1953, a combined Soviet-Chinese military tribunal found People's Liberation Army general Lin Bao guilty of treason and sentenced him to death by firing squad. General Lin had been arrested shortly after Mao Zedong's assassination on suspicion of having deep connections to the assassins.

On this day in 1953, Chinese People's Liberation Army general Lin Bao was executed by firing squad after having been convicted by a military tribunal of complicity in the assassination of Mao Zedong.

On this day in 1953, hundreds of Chinese protestors defied their own government and Soviet expeditionary troops in Beijing to march in support of the late General Lin Bao. The protest was crushed by PLA and Soviet units in what would later be remembered as 'the Tienanmen Square massacre'.

On this day in 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower blasted the Soviet and Chinese governments for their actions in the Tienanmen Square massacre the previous day.    

On this day in 1953, Winston Churchill, then in his second tenure as British prime minister, said that Great Britain would support the Eisenhower administration wholeheartedly in any action it sought to take in response to the Tienanmen Square massacre two days earlier.

On this day in 1953, Soviet premier Georgi Malenkov warned the United States that any intervention by the US or other Western powers in the situation in China would be regarded by the Soviet Union as an act of war and answered in kind.

On this day in 1953, NATO announced it would support any US military action taken in response to the Tienanmen Square massacre and Georgi Malenkov's threats of war.

On this day in 1953, NATO ground troops began deploying along the border between West and East Germany in anticipation of a possible Soviet attack. That same day the US Congress passed a resolution authorizing President Harry S. Truman to use force against the Soviet Union and China if either nation attacked American forces overseas.

On this day in 1953, Canada began deploying troops to West Germany to back NATO mobilization efforts against the Soviet Union.

On this day in 1953, Kim Il Sung was indicted by a UN tribunal for crimes against humanity.

On this day in 1953, the simmering tensions between NATO and the Soviet bloc finally escalated into armed conflict as US and NATO ground troops clashed with Soviet and East German divisions along the Fulda Gap in the first engagement of what soon became World War III.

On this day in 1953, Kim Il Sung testified in his own defense at his war crimes trial.

On this day in 1953, US Air Force B-29s bombed Soviet military bases in East Germany as the NATO-Soviet war in Europe intensified.