The April 19 Revolution or the April Revolution is an anti-dictatorship struggle and revolution that expanded to large-scale citizens across the country, including student protests calling for the invalidity of the election and re-election in protest of the ruling Liberal Party of the Republic of Korea's vote-counting scheme on April 19, 1960, to elect Lee Ki-bung as vice president.
The Busan Ilbo reported that Kim Joo-yeol, a student who recently entered Masan Commercial High School after graduating from Namwon Middle School in North Jeolla Province in 1960 after he participated in the March 15 Masan uprising, was missing 27 days after the March 15 election was invalid, and the protests intensified nationwide when a tear gas shot by a police officer in his left eye was embedded in the sea off the central pier in Masan.
On April 19, police opened fire on protesters who flocked to the presidential residence, the Gyeongmudae, and after the shooting, the protesters armed with guns and fought back. President Rhee Syng-man, who faced national resistance and the military command's refusal to mobilize force, announced the resignation on April 26, leading to the collapse of Rhee Syng-man's Liberal Party regime, and as a result of this revolution, the Second Republic was launched on June 15 (the June 15 constitutional amendment).
It was designated as the 1974 statutory anniversary in order to honor the spirit of the April 19 Revolution, inherit and develop the 4/19 Democratic Philosophy, realize a defined society, and mourn the spirits of the victims.