The ROKS Cheonan sinking occurred on 26 March 2010, when the Cheonan, a Republic of Korea Navy ship carrying 104 personnel, sank off the country's west coast near Baengnyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, killing 46 seamen. A South Korean-led official investigation carried out by a team of international experts from South Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Sweden presented a summary of its investigation on 20 May 2010, concluding that the warship had been sunk by a North Korean torpedo fired by a midget submarine.

North Korea denied that it was responsible for the sinking, but it was still widely condemned for the attack among the international community. The People's Republic of China was one of few countries to dispute the claims and findings of the report. An investigation by the Russian Navy allegedly also did not concur with the report, but this was not confirmed. The United Nations Security Council made a Presidential Statement condemning the attack but without identifying the attacker.

Cheonan (Cheonan-si, sometimes spelled Chonan or Ch'onan) (Korean pronunciation: [tɕʰʌ.nan] ( listen)) is a city located in the northeast corner of South Chungcheong, a province of South Korea, and is 83.6 km south of the capital, Seoul. The average temperature in the city is 12.5^oC, with a recorded high of 34.2^oC and a low of -13.4^oC.

Cheonan has been called “the core city of [the] nation” as it is the gateway to the area around the national capital region and western Chungcheong, as well as the main transportation hub for the national road (Hwy 1, 21), railways, and expressways (IC 1-Gyeongbu Expressway, 25-Honam Expressway). At the Korail station in the downtown center, the Gyeongbu Line crosses north to south, and the Janghang Line extends to the south-west. Land routes open in all directions, including north to Seoul, west to Asan, south to Gongju and Daejeon, and east to Daegu and Busan.

Cheonan has always been a major transportation hub of Korea because of its proximity to Seoul and its location near a gap in the eastern mountain range (Charyeong Range) that allows passage through to the major southeast centers of Daegu and Busan. Cheonan’s Samgeori (meaning “3 ways”) park has been noted as a strategic point of transportation and a place where culture has spread for a long time. It is the place where Samnamdaero, which starts in Seoul, parts, leading one branch of the road through to the south-eastern Yeongnam region (which includes Gimcheon, Daegu, Gyeongju and Dongnae), and leading the other through Gongju and Nonsan to the Honam region (which includes Jeonju, Gwangju, Suncheon, and Yeosu).

The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁 or 조선전쟁, Hanja: 韓國戰爭 or 朝鮮戰爭; 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was a war between the Republic of Korea (supported primarily by the United States of America, with contributions from allied nations under the aegis of the United Nations) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (supported by the People's Republic of China, with military and material aid from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The Korean War was primarily the result of the political division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II. The Korean Peninsula was ruled by the Empire of Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. Following the surrender of the Empire of Japan in September 1945, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel, with U.S. military forces occupying the southern half and Soviet military forces occupying the northern half.

Kang Chol-Hwan (born July 1969) is a defector from North Korea. As a child he was imprisoned in the Yodok concentration camp for 10 years; after his release he fled the country, first to China and eventually to South Korea. He is the author, with Pierre Rigolout, of The Aquariums of Pyongyang and is a staff writer for The Chosun Ilbo.

Born in Pyongyang, North Korea, Kang spent his childhood in Pyongyang, where his family lived in relative luxury owing to his grandfather's position and the fortune he had given to the country upon the family's return from Japan. Though they had never renounced their Korean citizenship and Kang's grandmother had been a staunch Party member in both countries, the family remained under a cloud of suspicion for having lived in Japan. In 1977, his grandfather was accused of treason and was sent to the notoriously brutal Senghori concentration camp. According to current KCNA propaganda by the North Korean government, the elder Kang was an agent of the Japanese National Police. As the family of a traitor, Kang and his family were sent to the Yodok concentration camp. Kang was 9 years old; his sister Mi-ho was just 7.