Seventy years ago – towards the end of World War II – the Korean Peninsula was liberated from Japan, an event that would cause it to be split into the North and South Koreas that we know today.
Fast-forward to Friday, when North Korea announced that the country's leadership would no longer run on the same time zone as Japan and South Korea because reasons.
In order to correct the sins of the past, North Korea has declared that all clocks across the country will be set to match up with Pyongyang, the country's capital. In practice, that means setting clocks a half hour back, as this broadcast explains.
"The wicked Japanese imperialists committed such unpardonable crimes as depriving Korea of even its standard time while mercilessly trampling down its land with 5,000-year-long history and culture and pursuing the unheard-of policy of obliterating the Korean nation," state news agency KCNA said to justify the decision.
Seoul's Unification Ministry said Friday that the North's action could bring minor disruption at a jointly-run industrial park at the North Korean border city of Kaesong and other inter-Korean affairs. Spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee said the North's new time zone could also hamper efforts to narrow widening differences between the Koreas.
But don't go rolling back your clock just yet, Pyongyang readers. The changes won't take effect until Aug. 15, to commemorate the anniversary of when Kim Il Sung, North Korea's first leader, "crushed the brigandish Japanese imperialists."
After that, though, you'll be traveling back in time once you cross into North Korea — fitting, given the restricted access to the internet there, the rampant human rights violations, and general frozen-in-time nature of the country.
