0:00 On April third, 1948, an uprising on the Korean island of Jeju began in protest of separate national elections.0:09 What followed was a brutal suppression that resulted in an estimated fourteen thousand civilian deaths, a foundational trauma that would echo for generations.0:22 A single date can hold so much.0:24 And what a day April third is.0:27 It's a day of connection—in 1906, the Seoul-Sinuiju railway opened, a 518-kilometer line that became the busiest artery on the peninsula until the country was divided.0:40 It’s also a day of incredible star power.0:44 In 1924, on this very same day, both Marlon Brando AND Doris Day were born.0:50 You can’t make that up.0:52 Later, Eddie Murphy and Alec Baldwin would join them.0:56 And some historical detectives, using astronomical charts, believe that on April third, 33 A.D., a lunar eclipse over Jerusalem marked the day of the crucifixion.1:09 But the date holds darker moments, too.1:12 In 1974, South Korean President Park Chung-hee announced an emergency bill that allowed for the death penalty against protest leaders.1:23 And on this day in 2020, South Korea’s confirmed COVID-19 cases officially passed ten thousand.1:31 But let’s go back to that island in 1948.1:35 The Jeju April 3rd Incident.1:37 From our vantage point now, we can see what was happening so clearly.1:43 The world was hardening into Cold War blocs, and the division of Korea was becoming permanent.1:50 The people of Jeju rose up against an election they feared would cement that division forever.1:58 What looked to the government like a communist-led rebellion was, for many on the ground, a desperate cry to remain one country.2:08 The military response was overwhelming and indiscriminate.2:13 For decades, the story was suppressed, a national wound that wasn't allowed to be spoken of.2:21 But history is never truly buried.2:23 We see it now in films like "My Name Is," where a new generation uses art to process the trauma, to restore the memory, to give names back to the ghosts.2:36 What looked like a local incident then, we now understand as the tragic overture to the Korean War.2:44 A single date can hold the blueprint for our divisions, and the dream of putting it all back together.
