- Born in Hwasun-gun, Jeolla-namdo, on August 29
- Admitted to Dongsan Elementary School, Gwangju in 1973
- Admitted to Dongsan Middle School, Gwangju in 1979
- Admitted to Jinheung High School, Gwangju in 1982
- Admitted to, Department of Business Administration, College of Commerce and Economics,
  Yonsei University in 1985 and participated in 'Cartoon Love' club.
- Attended 'a Yonsei Students Determination Rally for Departing for the June 10 Convention'
  on June 9, 1987 and was stricken with a SY-44 teargas bomb shot by the police and passed out in front
  of the Yonsei University Gate during a demonstration
- Died while fighting the disease for 27 days for brain damage at an intensive care room,
  Severance Hospital at 2 : 05 on the daybreak of July 5, 1987
- A democratic national funeral for honor of 'late patriotic student Lee Han-yeol martyr to democracy'
  held and buried at Mangwoldong Cemetery for National Democratic Martyrs, Gwangju on July 9, 1987

On June 9, 1987, while some 1,000 Yonsei Students after 'a Yonsei Students Determination Rally for Departing for the June 10 Convention' one day prior to the June 10 Convention were staging a demonstration in front of the front gate, Lee Han-yeol, a sophomore of business administration at Yonsei University was hit on the back of the head with a SY-44 teargas bomb shot by the police and passed out.
Lee Han-yeol was directly carried by classmates to the hospital, received treatment at a intensive care room at Severance Hospital but he finally died from a failure of cardiopulmonary function due to brain damage while he was fighting the disease for 27 days without recovering consciousness at 2:05 on the daybreak of July 5. 1987. The hospital announced that as Lee's blood pressure went down to 30 sharply, he was given hypertensive drug and cardiopulmonary resuscitation but finally died with life-support system on. The direct cause, intermediate cause and antecedent cause of death which the hospital had disclosed were a failure of cardiopulmonary function, pneumonia and brain damage, respectively.

Lee Han-yeol's strike with a tear bomb was the starting point of the June struggle and led the democratic camp to reach the climax in the passion for democratization. In addition, as it happened after the real facts of Park Jong-cheol's torturing to death had been revealed on May 18, 1987, people got a shock all the more. At his last offices performed on July 9, 1987, 5 days after hid death, a total of some 70,000 students, citizens, politicians and members out of government participated and his body was buried at Mangweol-dong Cemetery, Gwangju. Lee Han-yeol's tear bomb strike along with Park Jong-cheol's torturing to death gave the Chun Doo-hwan regime a sense of deep distrust and the struggle of the people angry at these spread completely out of control.

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