이승만 李承晚

First President of the Republic of Korea

Life & career

Syngman Rhee was imprisoned for his role in the Independence Club during the late Korean Empire before emigrating to the United States, where he earned a doctorate from Princeton University. In 1919 he was named the first president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, leading diplomatic efforts for independence through the Korean Commission and other overseas offices.

He married Park Seung-seon in 1890 and had a son, Lee Bong-su, who died of diphtheria in 1906; the couple later divorced, and Rhee remarried Austrian-born Francesca Donner. After chairing the Constituent Assembly in 1948, he was elected the first President of South Korea and served through a third term, pushing land reform, a controversial 1952 constitutional amendment enabling direct presidential elections, the declaration of the Peace Line, and the 1953 Korea-US Mutual Defense Treaty.

Long-term rule and the rigged March 1960 election triggered the April 19 Revolution, forcing his resignation; he died in exile in Hawaii and is interred at the Seoul National Cemetery.

Grave

Seoul National Cemetery

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