Name: Kim Jong Il Nation: North Korea Born (Date): February 16, 1941 Born (Place): Khabarovsk, Siberia

Kim Jong Il was born February 16th 1941 in Khabarovsk, Siberia though in his official biography it is claimed that he was born February 15th 1942 in order to be in harmony in terms of decades with his father. Kim Jong Il’s original name was originally Yuri Irsenowich Kim later taking his patronymic name from his father’s Russian name.

His father was an important figure amongst Korean communist exiles and a captain and battalion commander in the Soviet 88th brigade. The family moved into a former Japanese Officer’s mansion in Pyongyang (capital of North Korea) where Kim Jong Il’s brother (Shura Kim or the first Kim Pyong-Il) drowned in 1947. In 1949 his mother died during labor when Kim Jon Il was young.

Kim attended primary school in 1948 and is believed to receive most of his education while he was in the People’s Republic of China. He had lived there because he and his father were sent there during the Korean War for protection. He graduated from Namsan School in Pyongyang (a special school for the children of communist officials). Later he had attended Kim Il Sing University and majored in Political Economy. When Kim Jong Il had graduated in 1964 his father had taken control of the North Korean government.

His father also had married and had another son named Pyong-Il though Kim Jong Il had been chosen to be their father’s successor. Kim Pyong-Il since than has served in many embassies in Europe and is presently the North Korean ambassador to Poland. It is rumored that their father had exiled him to these distant places in order to prevent a power struggle between them.