(For related story see KOREA-NORTH/ESCALATION or click on [ID:nSEO68307])

April 4 (Reuters) - North Korea has increased tension on the heavily armed Korean peninsula over the past week with a missile launch and threats to attack the South and reduce it to ashes.

The following is a list of military conflict and incidents that have raised tensions between the two states that have not signed a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War.

* June 25, 1950: North Korean troops invade the South in an attempt to forcibly reunite the country. Chinese troops later join them to oppose U.S.-led United Nations forces. The Korean War ends with a truce signed on July 27, 1953, and the two Koreas remain technically at war.

* Aug 15, 1974: North Korean agent attempts to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-hee in Seoul. Kills the first lady instead.

* Oct. 9, 1983: More than 20 people, including four South Korean cabinet ministers, are killed in Burma (now Myanmar) when North Korean agents blow up a major landmark just minutes before South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan is due to arrive.

* Nov. 29, 1987: North Korean agents blow up a South Korean civilian airliner, killing 115 people, leading Washington to place North Korea on its list of countries supporting terrorism.

* April 1996: North Korea renounces the armistice and sends troops into the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating the two. In September, a North Korean submarine runs aground and is abandoned off the South Korean coast. Twenty-four crew are shot dead, one is captured and one escapes. Eleven of the crew believed to have died in group suicide.

* June 15, 1999: At least 17 and as many as 80 North Korean sailors killed in first Yellow Sea clash since end of Korean War.

* June 29, 2002: Clash between South and North Korean naval vessels in the Yellow Sea sinks one South Korean frigate and kills six South Korean sailors and an estimated 13 North Koreans.

* Oct 9, 2006: First nuclear test by the North. United Nations passes sanctions banning trade in weapons and other goods with North Korea.

* May 28, 2008: North Korea test fires a battery of short-range missiles one day after it expels South Korean officials from a joint industrial complex north of the border.

Source: Reuters (Writing by Gillian Murdoch, Singapore Editorial Reference Unit)

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