Park just latest South Korean president to fall from grace

Nearly all the country's former presidents, or their family members and top aides, have become entangled in scandals near the end of their terms or after leaving office.

Besides corruption, there have been coups, an assassination and a suicide:

The U.S.-educated Rhee, who fought for Korean liberation from Japanese colonial rule, became South Korea's founding president in 1948 with help from the United States.

In 1987, massive pro-democracy demonstrations forced him to accept a constitutional revision for direct presidential elections.

After his tenure ended, Chun spent two years in exile in a remote Buddhist temple as calls mounted to punish him for corruption and human rights abuses.

Roh, Chun's army buddy and hand-picked successor, won the 1987 election, thanks largely to divided votes among opposition candidates.

[...] his popularity nosedived as the late-1990s Asian financial crisis battered South Korea's economy, toppling some of the country's debt-ridden conglomerates and forcing the government to accept a $58 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

Earlier, lawmakers voted to impeach Roh in 2004 on allegations of incompetence and election law violations, but the Constitutional Court reinstated him two months later, saying the accusations were not serious enough to justify his unseating.

Park's arrest came three weeks after the Constitutional Court stripped her of office over a corruption scandal, amid allegations that she colluded with a confidante to extort companies for money and favors, took bribes, and allowed the friend to manipulate state affairs from the shadows.