Take a trip to Thailand

• History of Thailand
• Thailand politics
• Economy of Thailand
• Culture of Thailand

History of Thailand The history of Thailand begins with the country in South and Southeast Asia to migration of the Thais from their avoid European colonisation. This is ancestoral home in southern China into reflected in the country's modern name, mainland southeast asia around the 10th Prathet Thai or Thai-land, used century AD. Prior to this Mon, Khmer and unofficially between 1939 and 1945 and Malay kingdoms ruled the region. The officially declared on May 11, 1949, in Thais established their own states which prathet means "nation" and thai starting with Sukhothai and then means "free". Ayutthaya kingdom. These states fought The Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 made each other and were under constant the modern border between Siam and threat from the Khmers, Burma and British Malaya by securing the Thai Vietnam. Much later, the European authority on the provinces of Pattani, colonial powers threatened in the 19th Yala, Narathiwat and Satun, which were and early 20th centuries, but Thailand previously part of the semi-independent survived as the only Southeast Asian Malay sultanates of Pattani and Kedah. A state to avoid colonial rule. After the series of treaties with France fixed the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, country's current eastern border with Thailand endured sixty years of almost Laos and Cambodia. permanent military rule before the Military rule establishment of a democratic system. The Siamese coup d'état of 1932 Sukhothai and Lannathai transformed the Government of Thailand Thais date the founding of their nation from an absolute to a constitutional to the 13th century. According to monarchy. King Prajadhipok initially tradition, Thai chieftains gained accepted this change but later independence from the Khmer Empire at surrendered the throne to his ten-year Sukhothai, which was established as a old nephew, Ananda Mahidol. Upon his sovereign Kingdom by Pho Khun Si abdication, King Prajadhipok said that Indrathit in 1238. A political feature the duty of a ruler was to reign for the called, in Thai, 'father governs good of the whole people, not for a children' existed at this time. select few. King Ananda Mahidol (Rama Everybody could bring their problems to VIII) died in 1946 under somewhat the king directly; there was a bell in mysterious circumstances, the official front of the palace for this purpose. explanation being that he shot himself The city briefly dominated the area by accident while cleaning his gun. He under King Ramkhamhaeng, who established was succeeded by his brother Bhumibol the Thai alphabet, but after his death Adulyadej, the longest reigning king of in 1365 it fell into decline and became Thailand, and very popular with the subject to another emerging Thai state Thais. Although nominally a known as the Ayutthaya kingdom, which constitutional monarchy, Thailand was dominated southern and central Thailand ruled by a series of military until the 1700s. governments, most prominently led by Another Thai state that coexisted with Luang Phibunsongkhram and Sarit Sukhothai was the northern state of Dhanarajata, interspersed with brief Lanna. This state emerged in the same periods of democracy. In 1992 the last period as Sukhothai, but survived military ruler, Suchinda Kraprayoon, longer. Its independent history ended in gave up power in the face of massive 1558, when it fell to the Burmese; popular protests, supported by the king. thereafter it was dominated by Burma and From 1992 to September 2006, Thailand Ayutthaya in turn before falling to the was a functioning democracy with army of the Siamese King Taksin in 1775. constitutional changes of government. Ayutthaya However, in September 2006 a coup The first ruler of the Kingdom of removed the controversial government led Ayutthaya, King Ramathibodi I, made two by the billionaire Thaksin, and the important contributions to Thai history: country has been run by the military the establishment and promotion of since. Theravada Buddhism as the official In early January 1941, Thailand invaded religion - to differentiate his kingdom French Indochina, beginning the from the neighbouring Hindu kingdom of French-Thai War. The Thais were better Angkor - and the compilation of the equipped than, and outnumbered, the Dharmashastra, a legal code based on French forces, easily taking Laos. The Hindu sources and traditional Thai French decisively won the naval Battle custom. The Dharmashastra remained a of Koh Chang. tool of Thai law until late in the 19th The Japanese mediated the conflict, and century. Beginning with the Portuguese a general armistice was declared on in the 16th century, Ayutthaya had some January 28. On May 9 a peace treaty was contact with the West, but until the signed in Tokyo, with the French being 1800s, its relations with neighbouring coerced by the Japanese into nations as well as with India and China, relinquishing its hold on the disputed were of primary importance. Ayutthaya territories. dominated a considerable area, ranging After the end of World War II, Prime from the Islamic states on the Malay Minister Pridi Phanomyong agreed to Peninsula to states in northern return the captured territories to Thailand. Nonetheless, the Burmese, who France, as a condition for admission to had control of Lanna and had also the newly created United Nations. unified their kingdom under a powerful On December 8, 1941, a few hours after dynasty, launched several invasion the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan attempts in the 1750s and 1760s. demanded the right to move troops across Finally, in 1767, the Burmese attacked Thailand to the Malayan frontier. Japan the city and conquered it. The royal invaded the country and engaged the Thai family fled the city where the king died army for six to eight hours before of starvation ten days later. The Phibun ordered an armistice. Shortly Ayutthaya royal line had been thereafter Japan was granted free extinguished. Overall there are 33 kings passage, and on December 21, 1941, in this period, including an unofficial Thailand and Japan signed a military king. alliance with a secret protocol wherein There were 5 dynasties during Ayutthaya Tokyo agreed to help Thailand get back period: territories lost to the British and 1.Eu Thong Dynasty which consisting of 3 French colonial powers and Thailand kings undertook to assist Japan in her war 2.Suphanabhumi Dynasty consisting of 13 against the Allies. kings After Japan's defeat in 1945, with the 3.Sukhothai Dynasty consisting of 7 help of a group of Thais known as Seri kings Thai who were supported by the United 4.Prasart Thong (Golden Tower) Dynasty States, Thailand was treated as a consisting of 4 kings defeated country by the British and 5.Bann Plu Dynasty consisting of 6 kings French, although American support mitigated the Allied terms. Thailand was Thornburi and Bangkok period not occupied by the Allies, but it was After more than 400 years of power, in forced to return the territory it had 1767, the Kingdom of Ayutthaya was gained to the British and the French. In brought down by invading Burmese armies, the post-war period Thailand enjoyed its capital burned, and the territory close relations with the United States, split. General Taksin managed to reunite which it saw as a protector from the the Thai kingdom from his new capital of communist revolutions in neighbouring Thonburi and declared himself king in countries. 1769. However, Taksin allegedly became Recently, Thailand also has been an mad, and he was deposed, taken prisoner, active member in the regional and executed in 1782. General Chakri Association of Southeast Asian Nations succeeded him in 1782 as Rama I, the (ASEAN), especially after democratic first king of the Chakri dynasty. In the rule was restored in 1992. same year he founded the new capital Democracy city at Bangkok, across the Chao Phraya The post-1973 has been marked by a river from Thonburi, Taksin's capital. struggle to define the political In the 1790s Burma was defeated and contours of the state. It was won by the driven out of Siam, as it was now King and General Prem Tinsulanonda, who called. Lanna also became free of favoured a democratic constitutional Burmese occupation, but the king of a order. new dynasty was installed in the 1790s The post-1973 years has seen a difficult was effectively a puppet ruler of the and sometimes bloody transition from Chakri monarch. military to civilian rule, with several The heirs of Rama I became increasingly reversals along the way. The revolution concerned with the threat of European of 1973 inaugurated a brief, unstable colonialism after British victories in period of democracy, with military rule neighbouring Burma in 1826. The first being reimposed after a bloody Thai recognition of Western power in the right-wing coup in 1976. For most of the region was the Treaty of Amity and 1980s, Thailand was ruled by Prem, a Commerce with the United Kingdom in democratically-inclined strongman who 1826. In 1833, the United States began restored parliamentary politics. diplomatic exchanges with Siam, as Thereafter the country remained a Thailand was called until 1939, and democracy apart from a brief period of again between 1945 and 1949. However, it military rule from 1991 to 1992. The was during the later reigns of King populist Thai Rak Thai party, led by Chulalongkorn, and his father King prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Mongkut, that Thailand established firm governed since 2001. rapprochement with Western powers. It is On September 19, 2006, with the prime a widely held view in Thailand that the minister in New York for a meeting of diplomatic skills of these monarchs, the UN, Army Commander-in-Chief combined with the modernising reforms of Lieutenant General Sonthi Boonyaratglin the Thai Government, made Siam the only launched a successful coup d'état. 1 A B C D 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108