For 51 hours, the world had absolutely no clue.
The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was such a closely guarded secret that few outside the North Korean elite would even have guessed anything was amiss.
It wasn't until North Koreans were instructed to listen to a special broadcast two days later that they found out Kim had been dead for two days.
The news sent shock waves not only throughout the secretive nation but across the Korean Peninsula, causing geopolitical tensions to rise.
When the country's famous newsreader Ri Chun-hee, known as the pink lady for her iconic bright pink hanbok, appeared on TV screens dressed in black, North Koreans knew it could mean only one thing.
Fighting back tears, Ri broke the news to her people that their Dear Leader had died.
On December 17, 2011, the secretive nation's second supreme leader had been on board a train. He hated flying, and always travelled by armoured train.
Ri revealed he had suffered a massive heart attack due to great "mental and physical strain" while travelling on a train to give on-the-spot guidance.
Videos and images at the time showed crowds of tears, people beating their chests and throwing themselves to the floor in floods of overwhelming grief.
Kim was just 70 and was posthumously declared Eternal General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK).
Arise, the Great Successor
North Korea's elite had every reason to keep the news a tightly guarded secret.
The country's most powerful position was vacant, and while Jong-il's youngest son, Kim Jong-un, had already been declared the next leader, he was yet to make his mark on the world.
In her book The Great Successor, Anna Fifield writes of the enormous pressure the then 27-year-old Kim Jong-un was under.
"Kim Jong-un found himself the leader of the totalitarian state that his family had more or less invented. He was now entering the most important year of his life, the year that would show whether he was capable of keeping his family's grip on the country or whether the brutal anachronistic system would finally tear itself apart."
She goes on to say the younger Kim had two key priorities: working to assert his authority over men who had been working for the regime longer than he had been alive and to keep a lid on the population, all while countering an international community that was hoping for one main objective — his failure.
In fact, the elite were already looking to the youngest Kim son in 2008 after his father suffered impaired movement in his left arm and leg following a stroke.
That reason alone was enough for those who wanted to keep the third Kim in power to do everything to keep him there, including taking out potential rivals and eliminating any threat before anyone knew his father had died.
Tensions high, calls for calm
While North Korea embraced its new leader, global tensions remained high following the death of a man who many suspect would have preferred a career directing movies rather than ruling over a repressed population.
Kim Jong-il, who officially became leader on October 8, 1997, was regarded as a skilled and manipulative ruler on the world stage, establishing ties with the South. Yet domestically, he remained a repressive leader whose economic mismanagement resulted in the country's worst famine in the 1990s, resulting in the death of an estimated 3 million people.
News of his death put Japan and South Korea into defence mode — militaries were on high alert with Tokyo activating an emergency response team.
The young Kim had little political experience and was now in control of a nuclear arsenal, one his father had worked hard to build up but one he would soon surpass. Internally, it was considered the country's ultimate and only protection.
It was little wonder the world was jittery.
Even Australia was feeling the effects, with then foreign minister Kevin Rudd among those calling for calm in the region.
"North Korea is a notoriously secretive society, and it will be difficult to read in the immediate days ahead precisely what will transpire in terms of the future of the North Korea leadership," he said at the time.
"There will therefore be considerable ambiguity and uncertainty in the days ahead, and this should be regarded as normal."
Rudd also said the death provided North Korea with a new opportunity to engage with the international community.
Yet 14 years later, the world is still waiting.
