Roh Jeong-tae
The author is a writer and senior fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
On the morning of June 8, 1973, Pohang Iron and Steel Company — now Posco — President Park Tae-joon faced a defining moment. That day marked the first ignition of the company’s newly completed No. 1 blast furnace.
Park Tae-joon, then chairman of Pohang Iron and Steel Company, and employees cheer as the first molten iron flows from the No. 1 blast furnace at 7:30 a.m. on June 9, 1973, marking the start of steel production at the Pohang steelworks. [JOONGANG PHOTO]
Holding a lighting rod in his hand, Park inserted it into the furnace tuyere. Moments later, flames roared to life. The heart of Korea’s steel industry had begun to beat. In the history of the nation’s industrialization, the symbolic significance of that spark rivaled the fire that Prometheus stole from the gods and delivered to humanity in Greek mythology.
