Her Imperial Majesty Empress Myeongseong of Joseon (1851-1895), more commonly known as Queen Min (閔妃), was the last empress of Korea. She is recognized by the Korean people as a heroine, equivalent to France's Joan of Arc.

Empress Myeongseong was the wife of Emperor Gojong of the Joseon Dynasty of the Daehan Empire. During her life as empress, she strived diplomatically and politically to keep Korea independent of foreign influence. She is credited for introducing new Western technologies, such as trains, telephones, streetcars, and electrical lights. She also proved herself brilliant when handling foreign affairs, as shown when she summoned the help of Russia and the Qing Dynasty of China to block the Japanese from taking over Korea, which was within considerable influence of Tokyo's imperialistic ambitions.

The Japanese, Emperor Meiji in particular, viewed her as an obstacle. However, efforts to neutralize her or to remove her from Korea's government continuously failed due to Emperor Gojong's devotion.

The Japanese resorted to sending ambassadors to Korea's royal court, but such efforts were eventually repelled, again by Empress Myeongseong. As a result, the Japanese minister to Korea, Miura Goro, faced with losing Korea, allegedly hired assassins to invade Kyongbok Palace, the Korean imperial residence, and kill the empress in 1895. Two of the Japanese assassins were allegedly Shigeaki Kunitomo and Kakitsu Ieiri. [1] (http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200505/kt2005051017071968040.htm) Increasingly, other figures that were involved in this event, are coming to light.

The mercenary killers raped and slaughtered three women suspected of being Queen Min, and when they verified which was the Queen they raped her and they desecrated her body, displayed it to a small circle, cut it to pieces, and then burned the corpse. Other witness accounts indicate she was raped then burned alive.

These criminal acts were witnessed by Russian architects and one of the guards named Sabatin and other foreign officials, protested heavily. To appease this protesting, and other growing criticism worldwide, the Japanese government eventually brought Miura Goro and the other assassins to a criminal court. But all were cleared of murder charges on the grounds of a lack of clear-cut evidence.

Emperor Gojong, enraged over the event, posthumously awarded his late wife the title Myeongseong (bright or shining star) and enshrined her in Jongmyo, Korea's state shrine. She is the only empress enshrined in Jongmyo; all other females are queens.

One of the assasin's grandkid made a trip to Korea to apologize a few weeks ago at her grave on behalf of his Grandfather. He seemed like a pretty cool guy

Yeah, I read about that.

Tragic end for the Queen, though. But one wonders, where the hell were the guards or anyone else at that time?

The ancestors shouldn't have apologized. What wrong did they ever do? To put such heavy burden upon themselves, though admirable, was a pointless thing to do. But that's just my opinion.

yes I heard about this too...KBS made a documentary about this. It should be pretty interesting

I don't know what was fact and what was fiction regarding Queen Min.

To the contrary of what many claim, the Japanese were not at odds with the Korean royal family. In fact, they had one of their princesses who was eligible to marry into the Japanese aristocracy marry the Prince of Korea. I think her name was Princess Miyako. Note, it was common to have the royal houses in Europe intermarry. She was in essence the last Queen of Korea. Her son turned out to be a real loser. He studied Civil Engineering at MIT, married and an American woman divorced her and then took off leaving his American wife and Queen mum to themselves.

This guy had no sense of royal duty, no sense of royal obligation unlike his mother who at least made sure that the Kyonbok Palace Gardens were well maintained.

Really? I'll be sure to watch that.

I just read the website posting for the Queen Min story. I think that Japanese guy must be a "real fool" to make a trip out to Korea and be photographed. If I were him, I'd be scared about retaliation. I can't believe he's asking others related to the assassins to join him in this, which is another foolish thing to do.

I'm familiar with the history of Queen Min's attempt to establish closer relations with Russia. The Japanese greatly opposed Korea's closer ties with Russia. Thus the Russo-Japanese war broke out during the early 1900's. Perhaps the attack on Queen Min was related to this. But then again, I'm not a specialist of Korean history during this era.

I think this is a GOOD thing. As we all know, Japan needs to apologize to neighboring countries a lot, especially Korea for what they did to them. Korean's should be THANKFUL that the Grandchild of the assasin is actually willing to apologize to all of Korea for his Grandfather's actions. He did say he was scared and that people he knew told him not to go because he might be killed but he was brave enough to not listen to their advice. He came, he apologized, and he gave respect. What he did was right.

a "real fool"? Far from one... I give this man huge respect for doing something like this.

that's fu-ked up. raped and killed, especially a queen. that's just horrible.

..........japanese..........argh

Such a sad ending indeed

I don't think the plague has ended. Now they're using another method. They're putting the population "at risk" in the name bilateral trade. They've established a reward mechanism that is corrosive to the moral fibre of society. And the Koreans are desperately playing along with this.

scared cos he might be killed? COME ON PEOPLE we are now in the 21st centure anf it happened like 100 years ago. there WONT be any retaliation to him cos it wasnt hi actions, he couldnt help it. Its just a monumental thing and a nice thing to do that he condems his grandfathers actions, but as i say it wasnt him so none is gonna do anything. UNLESS they are some warped looser too obsessed with history and wants to get in the paper.