Seoul: A section of the Seongsu Grand Bridge spanning the Han River collapsed in 1994, resulting in the deaths of 32 people and injuring 17 others. The tragedy primarily affected students on a bus that fell into the river.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the same year saw North Korea and the United States sign an agreement to resolve a nuclear dispute. The framework agreed upon at the North Korean diplomatic mission in Geneva set the stage for cooperation, including replacing North Korea’s graphite-moderated reactors with light-water units and normalizing political and economic relations between Washington and Pyongyang.

In 2004, North Korea’s No. 2 leader, Kim Yong-nam, returned to Pyongyang following a visit to China. The visit reinforced the friendly relations between the two communist nations.

In 2011, South Korean Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik met with French Prime Minister Francois Fillon to support expanded economic cooperation. This was the first visit by a sitting French prime minister to Seoul in two decades.

By 2016, the Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia (AASSA) decided against considering North Korea’s membership due to international sanctions. North Korea had been seeking to join the AASSA since 2014.

In 2021, South Korea launched its first homegrown space launch vehicle, the KSLV-II, also known as Nuri, from the Naro Space Center. Although it reached a target altitude of 700 kilometers, it failed to place a 1.5-ton dummy satellite into orbit.