The YouTube playlist “Daehan News 1-Minute News” (대한뉴스 1분뉴스) is a series that re-edits 1950s Daehan News archival footage into vertical 60-second videos (10 videos as of October 5). As the playlist description says, “the news of those days” keeps the original narration of the Daehan News footage intact, and also aims for the fun of comparing how the same places and the same events have changed over the years.
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▶Source material — Daehan News under KOGL Type 1
From the original Daehan News footage that the Korea Policy Broadcasting Service (KTV) has released on Nanuri (나누리), we use videos under KOGL (Korea Open Government License) Type 1 (free to use on condition of source attribution). That's why each video's description lists the original title and the Nanuri URL verbatim — “This video uses …, produced by the Korea Policy Broadcasting Service (KTV) in 1953 and released under KOGL Type 1, and”.
Anatomy of a video — 60 seconds following the event as it happened
We condense the long original in the order of the event and keep one passage of the period narration in its original audio.
- 1953 · 3rd anniversary ceremony of the Korean War — President Syngman Rhee's address → commemorative speeches by the Mayor of Seoul and the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, and words of encouragement from the Republic of China's ambassador to Korea → a student street parade led by a military band, plus a passage from the 1953 narration reciting slogans
- Chuseok 1956 — the market the day before → shopping streets closed for the Hangawi holiday → children in new clothes → crowds in front of a theater (original narration) → visiting and tending ancestral graves at a public cemetery in the rain
- 1956 state textbook factory — the factory exterior → retouching illustrations by hand → large printing presses → bundles of books and finished textbooks
The description is half the work — 📅 date · 📍 place · 👤 people
Without context, footage from 70 years ago is just black-and-white video. So every description includes the date, place and people, the order of scenes, the original narration of the time, and newspaper articles from the time. For the state textbook factory video, we laid out the facts — that “20 million of the 25 million textbooks needed each year were produced at this factory,” and that the factory was built with aid from UNESCO and UNKRA (the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency) — together with September 1956 articles from the Kyunghyang Shinmun, the Dong-A Ilbo and the Chosun Ilbo. For scenes where no one is named in the records, we write exactly that: “No individuals named in the records.”
In English titles, too
Some videos are uploaded with English titles, such as “1956 Bastille Day, Medal Award Ceremony at the French Battalion in Wangsimni, Seoul” and “1956 UNESCO Director-General Evans Arrives at Yeouido Airport.” Footage featuring foreign institutions and figures can reach viewers abroad, too.
How it relates to Somssii Shorts
This series, too, was made on the video production line behind Somssii Shorts. If you have archival footage from a public archive or from your organization or company, we can turn it into a series the same way — source attribution, 60 seconds following the flow of the event, one passage of original audio, and the date, place and people laid out. Get in touch.
