1952 -- President Rhee Syng-man, 77, is reelected for a second term. After finishing his graduate studies at Harvard and Princeton universities, he worked toward establishing Korea's independence from Japanese colonial rule and held a representative position in the Korean provisional government-in-exile in Shanghai. Rhee became the first president of the Republic of Korea in 1948 and held the post until 1960, when he was forced to step down by a burgeoning pro-democracy movement.