Syngman Rhee (1875-1965) was a leader in Korean independence movements. He was elected the first president of the Republic of Korea in 1948. His government was overthrown in 1960.

Yi Sung-man, who Westernized his name to Syngman Rhee, was born on April 26, 1875, only son of Yi Kyng-sn, a member of the local gentry in the village of Pyng-san in Hwanghae Province. Rhee's boyhood name was Sung-yong. When he was very young, the family moved to Seoul, the capital city of a dynasty in rapid decline. He studied Chinese readers and classics before enrolling in the Paejae Haktang (academy), a Methodist mission school, in 1894. Upon graduation from Paejae, he was employed by the academy as an English instructor. He became interested in Western enlightenment ideas and joined reform movements which bitterly criticized the anachronistic and impotent Korean government. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1897. His conversion to Methodism came while he...