North korean leader biography

    Known as “the Sun of Korea,” Kim Il-Sung () was born Kim Sung-Ju in Mangyongdae village near Pyongyang to a Christian mother (Kang Ban Sok) and father (Kim Hyong Jik)  who taught in a Western missionary school and was a practitioner of Koryo (traditional) medicine. To avoid the Japanese occupation, the family moved to Manchuria where Kim Sung-Ju attended school to 8^th grade. He became active in vagabond anti-Japanese bands and joined the Chinese Communist Party. In his guerilla comrades (according to him) gave him the name “Il Sung,” the sun. He eventually became leader of a division in the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. Contrary to accepted legend, his guerrilla efforts against the Japanese were of marginal impact but Kim Il-Sung was regarded as a good organizer. Under intense Japanese pressure in China, the Korean partisans fled to the Soviet Union in where Kim Il-Sung became commander of a battalion of Korean and other partisans in the 88^th Special Independent Brigade near Khabarovsk. It was here he married fellow patriot Kim Jong Suk (who was later given the title "Mother of Korea") and had a son on Feb. 16, , Kim Jong-Il.  After the Soviets defeated Japan in Korea in [the 88^th battalion