Chang Myon in the context of "Second Republic of Korea"

The Kwangmu Reform (Korean: 광무개혁; Hanja: 光武改革) was a collection of reforms that were aimed at modernizing and Westernizing the Korean Empire as it felt held back from what other countries had achieved in their own process of Industrial Revolutions. It takes its name from Gojong, also known as the Gwangmu Emperor. The reforms that took place during the Gwangmu Era from 1897 to 1907 showed, in the long term, Korean potential for starting and achieving modernisation. This sort of development was unseen until the Chang Myon-era of the 1960s and 1970s. The Kwangmu reform later staged the fundamental background for future Korean development in infrastructure, reforming the economy and creating the nucleus of the modern bureaucracy and military.

The May 16 military coup d'état (Korean: 5·16 군사정변) or the May 16 Military Revolution (Korean: 5·16 군사혁명) was a military coup d'état in South Korea in 1961, organized and carried out by Park Chung Hee and his allies who formed the Military Revolutionary Committee, nominally led by Army Chief of Staff Chang Do-yong after the latter's acquiescence on the day of the coup. The coup rendered powerless the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Chang Myon and President Yun Posun, and ended the Second Republic, installing a reformist military Supreme Council for National Reconstruction effectively led by Park, who took over as chairman after Chang's arrest in July.

The coup was instrumental in bringing to power a new developmentalist elite and in laying the foundations for the rapid industrialization of South Korea under Park's leadership, but its legacy is controversial for the suppression of democracy and civil liberties it entailed, and the purges enacted in its wake. Termed the "May 16 Military Revolution" by Park and his allies, "a new, mature national debut of spirit", the coup's nature as a "revolution" is controversial and its evaluation contested.