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Some of History’s Most Unexpected Plot Twists

Khalid Elhassan February 22, 2021 35 min

Basset Hound - American Foxhound — George Washington riding after his hounds during a hunt. Journal of the American Revolution

North Korean soldiers marching through Seoul in the early stages of the Korean War. Pintrest

16. The Seesaw Korean War Was Filled With Unexpected Twists and Turns

The Korean War (1950 – 1953) was very much a seesaw affair in its first half. The conflict began when the North Koreans launched a surprise attack that routed their opponents. Within weeks, they overran most of the Korean Peninsula, and all that was left under the control of South Korean and American forces was a small corner around the port city of Pusan. Then American general Douglas MacArthur outflanked the North Koreans with a brilliant amphibious landing at Inchon, which led to the invasion’s collapse.

Douglas MacArthur watching the Inchon Landing from an American warship. Smithsonian Magazine

MacArthur then chased the routed enemy up the Korean Peninsula. Despite warnings that communist China would intervene if his forces reached the Chinese border, MacArthur insisted that they would not dare do so. As a result, his forces pushed up to the Sino-Korean border. Unfortunately for MacArthur, the Chinese dared. In an unexpected attack, they caught him off guard, routed his forces, and chased him down the Korean Peninsula even faster than he had raced up it a few weeks earlier.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.