Korean Armistice Signed / Thermidorian Reaction - July 27

Korean Armistice Signed - July 27, 1953 / On this day in 1794, members of the National Convention arrested Maximilien Robespierre and some of his supporters, in what became known as the Thermidorian Reaction.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, we're rerunning two episodes today, which means you
might hear two hosts enjoy the show. Welcome to this
day in history class. It's July. An armistice was declared
in the Korean War on this day in and really
nothing about this was supposed to be permanent. Yet that

(00:23):
armistice is still in place today decades later. It goes
back to the thirty eight Parallel being established as the
border between North and South Korea at the end of
World War Two. This was not intended to be a
permanent borderline was supposed to be negotiated later, with people
figuring out a more concrete and specific plan for where
that borderline should go. But the United States and the

(00:46):
Soviet Union were key players and these negotiations for seeking
a more permanent solution, and the Cold War got in
the way of doing anything about what was supposed to
be this temporary borderline. The Korean War file load. On
June nineteen fifty, North Korea invaded South Korea. North Korea
really wanted to unite both Korea's into one nation, and

(01:09):
it needed to be a united country under a communist government. Unsurprisingly,
the United States got involved, not long after, and also
called on the United Nations for support. Then, in late
nineteen fifty one, China joined on the North Korean side,
at which point this just became a war of attrition.
The armistice in nineteen fifty three came after more than

(01:32):
two years of peace talks. This was the longest armistice
negotiation in history, and this war was ongoing the whole
time that the peace talks were going on. These talks
included hints that the United States might resort to using
nuclear weapons to end this war. So typically at the
end of a war like this, the peace talks would

(01:52):
end at an actual treaty that was signed by all
of the belligerents in question, setting clear terms for the war.
But this armistice is more like a truce. It put
a stop to the active fighting without either side being
able to acknowledge the other as the victor. It suspended
the open hostilities between North and South Korea. It established

(02:14):
a demilitarized zone on either side of a borderline, and
it prevented both sides from entering the other through the air,
the ground, or the sea. And it set up a
process for transferring prisoners of war and displaced persons from
one place to the other. This armistice also required the
establishment of a Military Armistice Commission to make sure that

(02:37):
the armistice itself was not broken. It seems pretty tenuous,
and it was. Both sides were not even equally present
in signing the armistice. On one side where delegates from
China and North Korea, and on the other side was
a delegate from the United Nations Command delegation. And these
three delicates signed eighteen copies of the armistice in three

(02:59):
different languages. But you will notice South Korea wasn't actually
one of the signatories. This doesn't sound like the most
stable ending to a war, and it really wasn't. The
armistice wasn't intended to last for this long. It was
just supposed to be a temporary measure that would stop
the fighting until North Korea and South Korea could work
out an actual peace agreement, and a conference was held

(03:21):
in Geneva in nineteen fifty four that was supposed to
work out the final terms, but the talks broke down.
It ended without actually reaching that agreement, and one of
the questions that prevented an agreement from being reached was
how to hold fair elections if Korea was unified into
one nation. So even though the United States has never

(03:42):
signed a peace agreement actually ending the war, the US
isn't technically still at war with North Korea because the
United States was never technically at war in the first place.
The United States framed its involvement in this whole conflict
as a police action, not a formal declaration of war.
Although korea nuclear weapons, peace talks, and the idea of

(04:05):
a unified Korea have all continued to make ongoing headlines
even in the weeks leading up to this episode of
this podcast. Thanks to Christopher Hasciotis for his research work
on today's episode, at Torry Harrison for her audio skills
on all of these episodes. You can subscribe to This
Day in History Class on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and

(04:25):
wherever else you get your podcasts. Tune in tomorrow for
an unusual road to a country's independence. Hi um Eve's
Welcome to This Day in History Class, a show that

(04:46):
reveals a little bit more about history day by day.
The day was July four. Members of the National Convention,
which was the assembly that governed France, arrested Maximilian Robespierre

(05:08):
and leaders of the Paris City government. This incident was
called the Thermidorian reaction because it happened in the month
of Thermidor in the French Republican calendar one that was
used during the French Revolution. This day on the French
Republican calendar wasn't nine Thermidor year two. The Reign of
Terror was the nearly one year period during the French

(05:31):
Revolution when the revolutionary government took extreme measures against people
who were suspected of being enemies of the revolution. On
September five, the National Convention declared that quote terror is
the order of the day, and proceeded to shut down
opposition to the revolution by arresting and executing counter revolutionaries,

(05:53):
controlling prices in confiscating land. The Committee of Public Safety
was the body that was set up in April of
seventeen ninety three to deal with France's foreign and domestic
enemies and to oversee the government. Maximilian Robespierre was the
most prominent member of the committee, which formed the de

(06:13):
facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror.
On June tenth, four, the Committee passed a law that
required the revolutionary tribunal to choose a verdict of either
acquittal or death for a suspect. The period from the
enactment of this law to the Thermidorian reaction became known

(06:34):
as the Great Terror, as the number of executions increased
a lot. The Reign of Terror had been validated by
the argument that it was necessary due to immediate military threats,
but even though the tyranny was getting worse, the Republic
was not in immediate danger. Still, Robespierre continued to denounce
people as traders and proclaim his own integrity. But after

(06:57):
the assassinations of Jean Paul Murrat and the executions of
Jacques Avert, George Danton, and Camille des Moulan, Maximilian Robespierre
did not have much real political power. His power was
mainly in the Jacobin Club, a political group that was
instrumental in the Reign of Terror. Robespierre became the target

(07:18):
of many conspiracies, some formed for ideological reasons, others for
practical and personal reasons. On July four, these conspiracies converged
when members of the National Convention denounced the tyranny of
Robespierre and ordered the arrest of Robespierre and his followers.

(07:39):
He his brother Augustine, and his allies Francois en Rio,
George Couteau and Louis Antoine Leon du Saint Juice were arrested.
Robespierre and his supporters were declared outlaws, which meant they
would be executed without judicial process. Paris Commune troops failed
to free robes Pierre and followers, and the National Convention

(08:02):
troops easily seized them. On July, Robespierre and twenty one
of his allies were guillotined. More than a hundred supporters
of Robespierre were executed over the next few days. The
reign of Terror had ended, but the executions triggered more
unrest and violence. Jacobins and people with connections to Robespierre

(08:25):
were targeted, put on trial without due process, or massacred.
The period characterized by these attacks became known as the
White Terror. The attacks were largely carried out by the
moosecata or street fighters, as well as people who were
close to victims of the Great Terror. The Thermidorian reaction

(08:46):
also catalyzed in economic crisis and working people were facing
harsh conditions. Instead of implementing the constitution of se the
Thermidorians drew up a new constitution called the Constitute of
the Year three. It established a liberal republic with a
franchise based on the payment of taxes, a bicameral legislature,

(09:09):
and a five man executive directory the new regime. The
directory replaced the Convention and November and lasted four years.
I'm Eve Jeffcote and hopefully you know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. And today is
a very special day on this date in history class

(09:31):
because it is our producer, Chandler May's birthday. Everybody can
send him all the birthday wishes and thanks for all
the amazing work that he does on this show. If
there are any upcoming days in history that you'd really
like me to cover on the show, give us a
shout on social media at t D I h C podcast.

(09:52):
Thanks again for listening and we'll see you tomorrow. For
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