Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Former President Kim Dae-jung has died.

Former President Kim Dae-jung died today of pneumonia at the age of 83 (85 according to Korean soucres, 83 according to Western). He was born in Shinan county and served as president from 1998 to 2003. The New York Times has an obituary.

9 comments:

Lee said...

RIP

Jenny said...

sigh

Unknown said...

Rest in Peace

The Sanity Inspector said...

Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

Unknown said...

i'm sure he's not eight hundred and thirty-three years old...


May he rest in peace...

Brian said...

Thanks. I was sure I fixed that last night.

Brian said...

Okay, when I first did the post I wrote 85, going off the Korea Times article. When I came back in the evening I saw everyone else had written it up with 83, so I changed it (I guess I changed it to 833). The Korea Times is still going with 85 (1924-2009), so it's not an example of different age calculations. What's going on?

Unknown said...

According to wikipedia, he was born on January 6, 1924 (which I think was based on the Lunar Calendar and that it's on December 3, 1925, based on the "normal calendar")...so he's 85 (lunar), and 83 (normal; his 84th birthday would be in December)

eh? okay...rip

Inkwelles said...

A possible explanation for the age discrepancy from Michael Breen's column in the Korea Times:

Kim Dae-jung was born on the small island of Hawi-do off the southwest coast. His official birthday was December 1925, but he was in fact two years older. (The most likely explanation for this change, made by his mother when he was around 19 or 20, was so he could avoid conscription into the Japanese army after graduation from high school during the Second World War).