Chun Doo Hwan (born 1931), an army general turned politician, was elected to a seven-year term in 1981 as president of the Republic of Korea (South Korea).

Chun Doo Hwan was born on January 18, 1931, in a remote mountainous farm village in Hapch'ongun, South Kyongsang Province. He was the second son of a family of ten children. He studied the Chinese classics at an early age but started his formal primary school rather late. In 1940, at the age of nine, his family migrated to Manchuria where he entered Horan primary school in Jilin Province. After a little more than a year, his family moved back to Korea and settled down in Taegu, the third largest city in Korea. Following a period of irregular education, Chun was finally admitted to Hido Primary School in Taegu as a fourth grader in April 1944. It is said that Chun earned part of his school expenses...