How Kim went from basketball-obsessed child to nuke-loving dictator

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

80% : Kim is alleged to have addressed Trump as 'Your Excellency', and Trump later described the notes as 'beautiful'.
78% : Trump walked across the Line Of Control, the unofficial border between North and South Korea, becoming the first US president ever to set foot in the country.
74% : Kim Jong Un meeting with Donald Trump during an historic summit in Singapore in June 2018, marking the first time a North Korean leader has met with a US presidentThe summit introduced the world to many oddities of Kim's regime, including the jogging bodyguards who run alongside his limousine to prevent it from being attackedBetween the two visits to China, Kim also made a highly-publicised trip to South Korea in an attempt to thaw relations between the two sides ahead of the meeting with Trump.
63% : A month later, Kim and Trump arrived in Singapore for their own summit - a two-day affair held at the Capella Hotel in Singapore.
62% : He oversaw the construction of the country's most-powerful nuclear weapons and missiles capable of launching them at the US - and then leveraged them to secure three meetings with Donald Trump - becoming the first North Korean leader in history to meet face-to-face with an American president.
61% : President Trump came away from the meeting enthused, showering praise on his North Korean counterpart and even going so far as to say the two 'fell in love'.
58% : Good relations continued between the two men for several months afterwards, with Kim said to have written Trump several letters which were jokingly referred to as 'love letters'.
57% : Ahead of the summit with Trump, Kim travelled to China where he met with President Xi Jinping in his first overseas trip since becoming leader - seeking guidance for the upcoming negotiationsKim took a train to China due to a fear of flying that he inherited from his father, believing that planes are too risky and vulnerable to attack (pictured aboard his train)Another summit followed in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2019 amid vague hopes that getting the two men back in the same room might lead to a breakthrough.
56% : She has appeared by her brother's side more-frequently in state media photographs, and has been promoted several times, and now often makes public statements.
53% : That did not happen, and Trump and Kim remain in personal contact even after the summit fell apart.
50% : Trump and Kim met, shook hands, and then spent the rest of the day dining and conversing before signing an agreement of their own.
45% : North Korea successfully launched a satellite in 2012, giving an early signal that Kim would pay no heed to international treaties forbidding him to develop rockets and would instead aggressively pursue the technologyThree generations of the same missile - Hawsong-12 (left), Hwasong-14 (centre) and Hwasong-15 (right) - which form the backbone of North Korea's nuclear forces, and the latter of which is thought to be capable of hitting the USA Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile is launched during what North Korea says is a drill at an unknown location December 18, 2023Kim Jong Un watches the launch of a ballistic missile in North Korea in 2019, after his talks with Donald Trump failed and the country returned to testing weaponsThe missile tests continued apace after this - testing shorter range projectiles and components to be used in larger rockets - as Kim also turned his attention to building nuclear warheads.
42% : Rodman said he wanted to give Kim a better idea of who Donald Trump was before the two sat down for talks.
38% : They exchanged letters throughout 2019, with North Korean media releasing an image of Kim reading a letter Trump had sent him in June.
32% : The pair spent a day and a half in talks before Trump abruptly called an end to the meeting, telling reporters that no agreement could be reached.
31% : Trump walked away from a second summit with North Korea in Hanoi, saying Kim had demanded immediate relief from sanctions before he would think about getting rid of nukes - though the North disputed this accountTrump and Kim met for the last time at the DMZ, the unofficial border between North and South Korea, where Trump became the first US President to set foot on North Korean soilDisappearing act and succession plansThough he is head of one of the most secretive countries on earth, North Korea's state media ensures that Kim is never long out of the public eye.
24% : Both trips happened towards the end of 2019, months after nuclear negotiations with Donald Trump hit a wall.
1% : North Korea on Thursday, November 21, 2019As 2019 moved into 2020, Coronavirus swept around the globe, and Trump was soon sucked into the 2020 election cycle, which he lost to Joe Biden who has showed little enthusiasm for renewing relations with Kim and North Korea.

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