The Korean Peninsula had been a battlefield for centuries and this episode begins with an overview of the wars fought from the first through the 19th century and shows how the country developed as forged through conflict. The 1904 Sino-Russian War, with the peace deal brokered by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt led to Korea being dominated by and eventually occupied by Japan. At the end of World War II, the Russians were in the North and the Americans in the South, roughly separated by the 38th Parallel. In 1947 and 1948 U.N. resolutions basically set up what became the North and South Korean nations as proxies for the Soviets and the U.S. in Asia and laying the foundation for war by the North’s leader Kim Il Sung.