HISTORY OF TAEKWONDO
The literal translation for tae kwon do is “kicking”, “punching”, and “the art or way of”. … They are a kind of martial art in …
After the end of World War II in 1945 new martial arts schools called kwans opened in Seoul. These schools were established by Korean martial artists. In 1952, South Korean president Syngman Rhee urged martial arts to be introduced to the army under a single system. During this time Taekwondo was also adopted for use by the South Korean military, which increased its popularity among civilian martial arts schools.
In 1959 the Korea Taekwondo Association or KTA was established to facilitate the unification of Korean martial arts. In 1972 the KTA and the South Korean government’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism established the Kukkiwon as the new national academy for Taekwondo. Kukkiwon now serves many of the functions previously served by the KTA, in terms of defining a government-sponsored unified style of Taekwondo. In 1973 the KTA and Kukkiwon supported the establishment of the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF, renamed to World Taekwondo in 2017) to promote the sportive side of Kukki-Taekwondo. WT competitions employ Kukkiwon-style Taekwondo. For this reason, Kukkiwon-style Taekwondo is often referred to as WT-style Taekwondo, sport-style Taekwondo, or Olympic-style Taekwondo.Taekwondo made its debut as a demonstration Olympic sport at the 1988 Seoul Games, and became an official medal sport at the 2000 Sydney Games. In 2010, Taekwondo was accepted as a Commonwealth Games sport.
