Part 3/15:

South Korea’s rapid ascent from post-war devastation is a modern miracle. After the Korean War armistice in 1953, the country was a war-ravaged land with minimal resources, widespread illiteracy, and a battered capital city, Seoul. Despite these odds, under authoritarian leadership in the 1960s and ’70s, the government launched a bold industrialization campaign—the so-called "Miracle on the Han River"—organized around state-directed capitalism. This strategy funneled credit into family-owned conglomerates known as chaebols—Samsung, Hyundai, LG, SK—who took charge of rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and export economy.