South Korean President Park Chung-hee was assassinated in 1979.

President Park Chung-hee was shot at a restaurant by his friend, Kim Jae Kyu, the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.

Since Park took over the country after a military coup in 1961, he had ruled with "an iron fist." Kim said he assassinated the president to bring democracy back to South Korea.

Many South Koreans missed Park, because he led the country as it built up its own economy and managed to break away from the US. Since his death, that success is often focused on, rather than his militant regime.