U.S. vs North Korea: A Fraught History in Pictures

Donald Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to meet a North Korean leader on June 12, in an attempt to hash out an historic end to their almost 70-year conflict.

A deal with Kim Jong Un could mark the beginning of the end to a fraught history of American military involvement on the Korean Peninsula. What started as a U.S.-led attempt to stop the spread of communism became a frustrating struggle to keep the Kim regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon that could strike America.

Here we take a look at the relationship in pictures.

U.S. troops march into Seoul in September 1945. After Japan's surrender, the Soviet Union invaded Korea from the north and the U.S. moved its own troops into the south. By 1948, two separate Korean governments were vying to reunify the country under its own flag.