As National Geographic explains, the United States, North Korea, and China all signed an armistice agreement on July 27, 1953, but South Korea did not. The country did not like the idea of a two-state solution, so no binding peace treaty was ever signed, meaning the Korean War is technically still on. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t tried to put the peninsula back together again. There were some almost successful reunification talks in 2000, then in 2018 the leaders of the two countries shook hands and hugged, offering hopes that the two Koreas may become one once again. However, that has yet to come to fruition, and there are just as many examples of hostilities between them in recent years as friendly moments.

According to The New York Times, the hopefulness from the 2018 meeting did not last. By May 2020, they were already exchanging gunfire over the border, and in June of that year, North Korea blew up a joint liaison office in the demilitarized zone, a building meant to be used for peace negotiations. The explosion was just another sad chapter in the decades-long story of the unfinished Korean War.