Earliest American Report of Taekwondo?

“In nine months of covering the war in Viet Nam, I have marched with virtually every American and Vietnamese unit. None of them impressed me as much as the Koreans. They really are tigers.”

Above: Photograph that appeared in the June 5, 1966 Trenton Evening Times.

According to website of the International Taekwon-Do Federation, the history of Taekwondo in America began in 1966, when was founded by the art’s founder General Choi Hong Hi on March 22, 1966.

According to this article,

A Taekwondo demonstration at the United Nations headquarters in New York City in 1963, caused the formation of the U.S. Taekwondo Association in 1967, which later was superseded in 1974 by the U.S. Taekwondo Federation.

In Korea, the study of Taekwondo spread rapidly from the army into high schools and colleges. In march of 1966 Choi founded the International Taekwon-do Federation (ITF), which he also served as president. Choi later resigned as the KTA president and moved his ITF headquarters to Montreal, Canada, from where he concentrated on organizing Taekwondo internationally. His emphasis is on self-defense methodology, not particularly on the sport. By 1974, Choi reported that some 600 qualified ITF instructors were distributed throughout the world.

Despite some searching, we could find no period account of the 1963 United Nations demonstration. The following article, with accompanying photograph, appeared in the Trenton Evening Times on June 5, 1966. Could this be the first report of Taekwondo in America, or one of the first?

I leave our readers, more knowledgeable in Taekwondo, to let us know…

This article appeared under the headline, “Cong Do Not Fool with Tiger Division.”