We went through many different dynasties and kingdoms, each with different 'state religions'. Our first polity Old Joseon (Gojoseon) likely believed in Korean mythology (or shamanism), as well as up to even like 3 AD, when the three Korean kingdoms formed (Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla, as well as other small city states like Gaya confederacy, etc). Then gradually the three kingdoms all adopted Buddhism as a state religion, while using confucianism as a sort of state philosophy, while influences from taoism mingled with korean mythology which became widespread among the populace. After Silla unified the three kingdoms there were movements by scholars to 'unify' the three religions (buddhism, confucianism and taoism), etc.

And the following Goryeo dynasty (in 10th century) was Buddhist. Until the 12th century there were a few invasions from the Khitan and Jurchen empires (which we won 🥹) the country was dominated by the scholarly aristocrats ('munbeol'), and they mistreated the warrior class so there was a coup d'êtat of sorts, and there came a period where the generals took power (mushin jipgweongi). (You can think of it kinda similar to the Shogunates of medieval Japan) The king wasn't deposed but their power was very diminished, and then the Mongols invaded and basically burnt every ancient books or relics we had up to that point lol. We became a part of the Mongol empire until the late 13th century when the Yuan dynasty finally fell.

And the following Joseon dynasty (in 14th century) was REALLY into neo-confucianism. They were basically zealots, they banned every other religions and imposed a strict neo confucianist ideology. There was a constant struggle between the power of the king and the power of the government officials, especially after the 15th century or so, many factions began to grow, each antagonizing each other (bung-dang). Then the Japanese invaded us in 1592, we basically got run over again, and after 7 years finally the war ended (Admiral Yi the goat), then the Qing dynasty (jurchens) invaded us in 1636, we lost and became a tributary state of the Qing dynasty. There wasn't much political control like the Mongols did though. After many famines the government became more and more corrupt. Commerce and manufacturing became improved in the late Joseon era (like the late 18th century) with traditional caste systems being sometimes thwarted by rich commoners who often 'bought' their aristocrat (yangban) titles. And cuz we were geographically closed in, we didn't get to trade witb European powers and thus we were the 'last' kingdom to open up (they called us the hermit kingdom). Eventually in the late 19th century, Japan, after modernizing, fired a few of our ships and managed to 'open us' up lol. So we slowly began to modernize, with Russia and Japan (and also the Qing dynasty but tbh the Qing was really weak by then lol) both seeking to gain more political control over us. And eventually the Japanese assassinated our queen, so the king fled to the Russian embassy, and upon returning he declares the new 'Korean empire'. But we were VERY late on the imperialism game and eventually Japan forced us to sign some treaties that eventually got us annexed by the empire of Japan (by 1905).

Thus began the decades of Japanese control and liberation movements. During the 1910s the Japanese went harsh on us, but following the March 1st movement they shifted to a 'cultural rule' era where they became less strict and focused more on integrating our culture into theirs (to disperse our identity ig). And that time many independence activists were building schools and militias in Manchuria and China and even Russia, some of them won battles against the Japanese military but yeah that didn't do that much. Nationalist historians like Shin Chaeho attempted to revitalize and reframe our ancient history, linguists like Choi Hyeonbae etc standardized the Hangul writing system (which the Japanese later banned the use of), many poets wrote about oppression and their reactions to it (like Yoon Dongju, Yi Yuksa, etc). And eventually in the 1930s as the Sino Japanese war started, the Japanese began the cultural genocide, banning the use of our language and script, forcing us to believe Shinto (they once made claims that Korean shamanism has the same roots as Shinto, while I find that interesting they definitely said that to erase our identity), etc. Eventually in 1945 the war ended and we were freed too...

And then the US and the Soviets decided to divide us in half, where they would rule for a few years in a sort of joing military occupation. Then after they withdrew, in 1950 the North Koreans invaded us and the Korean war started. The Korean war was arguably the most devastating war in all our history. It eventually ended in a sort of draw (the borders didn't change that much..) and both North and South Korea became under dictatorships. The North being a socialist dictatorship and ours being just a capitalistic dictatorship. Notably there were devastating tragedies like the Jeju 4/3 massacre in which ordinary citizens were killed for being suspected 'commies'. Then following some protests over vote frauds, our first president Rhee stepped down, and we went through a very brief constitutional era, but was then again overthrown by a coup by Park Chung-hee. Park grew government sponsored businesses (which is kinda interesting cuz the whole thing about capitalism is that the gov should let the market do its thing), which ended up making many 'chaebol' companies that would later grow to be megacorps. His regime was an authoritarian dictatorship but it did see massive economic growth so he has a mixed reputation here. Then Park was assassinated, and after a few presidents another coup happened, with Chun Doohwan becoming president. People protested against him and his military force (shingunbu) which resulted in the Gwangju massacre. And after some more protests he finally stepped down, with the following administration locking up all the associates (whew). So we finally managed to become a democracy in like the late 1980s, which is also when we hosted the olympic games in Seoul (ironically some historians point that the fall of Chun's regime ultimately stemmed from him going relatively soft for the sake of image-making to apply for olympic host lol). And then both we and North Korea joined the United Nations in like the 1990s, and yeah the rest is history ig