How North Korean leader Kim Jong Un became one of the world's scariest dictators

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kim jong un

Reuters/KCNA KCNA

North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un greets a women's subunit during a rocket-launching drill.

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For the past 50 years, the world has grown used to crazy threats from North Korea that don't lead anywhere.

But the threats have taken a decidedly sharper and more ominous tone under Kim Jong Un, the third supreme leader of the hermit kingdom.

North Korea has carried out several nuclear tests under his rule.

And threats escalated this week after President Donald Trump said that North Korea would "be met with fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before" if the Hermit Kingdom continued to threaten the US.

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With all this attention, still relatively little is known of Kim. Here's what we do know of how he grew to be one of the world's scariest dictators.

Jeremy Bender and Gus Lubin contributed to a previous version of this story.