The story, in order

BTS was formed by the Seoul company Big Hit Entertainment (now BIGHIT MUSIC). RM (Kim Namjoon) was an established underground rapper before he joined, and was the first member brought into the project. Over the trainee years the line-up settled into seven: RM, Jin (Kim Seokjin), SUGA (Min Yoongi), j-hope (Jung Hoseok), Jimin (Park Jimin), V (Kim Taehyung), and Jung Kook (Jeon Jungkook).

Source: Wikipedia, BTS

ARMY often tells this period as an underdog story, a tiny company, a rap group nobody expected to last. The trainee hardship and the "small company" framing are widely repeated in fandom and interviews; we treat the emotional weight of that story as fan memory, not a metric.

BTS debuted on June 13, 2013 with the single album 2 Cool 4 Skool and the lead track "No More Dream," performing on M! Countdown. The early School Trilogy releases were built around the pressures of Korean youth and the education system.

Source: Wikipedia, BTS

The fandom name ARMY, Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth, was announced on July 9, 2013, a few weeks after debut. This is why ARMY flash their phones at 6:13: it is BTS's debut date, June 13.

Source: Wikipedia, ARMY (fandom)

The HYYH series, The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 1 (2015), Part 2 (2015), and Young Forever (2016), was BTS's commercial and critical breakthrough in Korea. "I Need U" earned the group its first music-show win, and "Run" and "Save Me" followed. The interconnected music videos launched the long-running BTS Universe narrative.

Source: Wikipedia, The Most Beautiful Moment in Life

Many ARMY mark HYYH as the moment BTS stopped being a rookie group and became a story you lived inside. The BTS Universe theories are deliberately open, what they "mean" is fan reading, not official text.

The Love Yourself trilogy, Her (2017), Tear (2018), and Answer (2018), broke BTS internationally. "DNA" became their first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, and Love Yourself: Tear became the first primarily Korean-language album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Source: Wikipedia, Love Yourself: Tear

On September 24, 2018, RM spoke at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York, at the launch of UNICEF's Generation Unlimited partnership. He closed with: "No matter who you are, where you're from, your skin color, your gender identity, speak yourself." He was 24.

Source: UN, RM's 2018 General Assembly remarks

"Dynamite" (August 2020), BTS's first single recorded entirely in English, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, their first US No. 1. "Butter" followed in 2021, and "Permission to Dance" closed out the run of pandemic-era English singles. The album BE (2020) was made largely in lockdown, with the members closely involved in its concept.

Source: Billboard, 'Dynamite' debuts at No. 1

For a lot of ARMY, this is the comfort era, "Life Goes On" and "Permission to Dance" arrived when people needed something gentle. That meaning is personal and varies from listener to listener; we don't dress it up as a statistic.

After the anthology album Proof (2022), BTS entered "Chapter 2", a period of solo releases alongside South Korea's mandatory military service. Jin was the first to enlist, in December 2022. The other members followed over the next year.

Source: AP, Jin begins military service

Discharge dates (per the site's verified record): Jin, June 12, 2024; j-hope, October 17, 2024; RM and V, June 10, 2025; Jimin and Jung Kook, June 11, 2025; SUGA, June 21, 2025, the last to complete service. All seven were publicly photographed together around July 1, 2025.

Source: AP, all seven complete military service

This was the hardest stretch to be ARMY through, years of solo work, no OT7, and an enlistment calendar counted down one date at a time. What carried people, in their own telling, was the certainty that this was a pause and not an ending.

BTS's fifth studio album ARIRANG was released on March 20, 2026, taking its name from the centuries-old Korean folk song. The lead single "SWIM" debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, BTS's seventh US No. 1, the most Hot 100 No. 1s by any group in roughly half a century.

Source: Billboard, 'SWIM' debuts at No. 1

A free comeback performance was held at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, in front of Gyeongbokgung Palace, the day after release, and streamed worldwide. After the wait, OT7 was on one stage again, and the timeline finally caught up to the present.

Source: Billboard, 'SWIM' debuts at No. 1

There is no neutral way for ARMY to write this chapter. The return is the whole point of the story everything else was building toward. We've kept the facts plain on purpose, the feeling does not need our help. 💜