Kim Jong Il

Bits and scraps about the world's most isolated and reclusive dictator and his world:

1941 Born Feb 16 Vyatskoye near Khabarovsk, USSR, to Kim Il Sung & Kim Jong Suk & Known as Yuri Irsenovich Kim (Yuri the Son of Il Sung Kim)

1949 His mother died

1964 Graduated from Kim Il Sung University, majored in Political Economy

1968 Named member of the DPRK (North Korean) Politburo

1969 Director of Propaganda & Agitation (Agitprop)

1973 Lead the "Capture the Three Flags of the Revolution" Movement

1970's Rumored English studies in Malta; came to be referred to as the "Glorious Party Center'

1974 Officially designated as Kim Il Sung's herediatary successor

1980 Party Secretariat, Military Commission, & Senior Member Politburo

1982 Designated the "Dear Leader"

1991 Supreme Commander of the Korean Peoples Army

1994 Kim Il Sung died but remains President of the DPRK

1997 Kim Jong Il named General Secretary of the Korean Workers Party (KWP) & Chairman of the National Defense Commission

2008 Reportedly suffered a stroke and was temporarily incapacitated

Kim Jong Il is known as a womanizer with expensive tastes in Cognac who has amassed a vast collection of motion pictures and written and published on movies, theater, opera--the arts