A Super Quick History of Thailand

Sati and welcome to this is Asia and here's Thailand now come on let's go shall we the tropical Monsoon kissed country of Thailand was first populated by archaic Hunters who did exciting things like hunt food and then eat it eventually they learned to grow rice and they much prefer this less fun but more efficient method of appeasing hunger cleverness in craftsmanship increased and kingdoms arose Buddhism today the majority religion may have arrived as early as the 3rd Century BC after the Indian king Ashoka dispatched missionaries to Southeast Asia but it was certainly entrenched by the time of the state known as tarwadi not a lot is known about this state but what remains of it indicates pretty clearly that they were good Builders and artists and heavily influenced by Indian culture the region was afterwards dominated by the Cambodian Kamai Empire for centuries and several of their architectural Marvels were constructed in present-day Thailand it was during Cambodian rule that the Thai people arrived in what would one day be known as Thailand the ties fought against the natives and began establishing their own kingdoms back in those days the Tha were known as Siamese and the Siamese that rebelled against the cambodians founded the soot Thai Kingdom which built big stuff and attained its Zenith under Ram kamang who was credited with inventing the Thai alphabet the kingdom was then absorbed into another one the Aya which went to war with neighboring Burma and then went to war with burmer again and again and again and again and again and again and again they sort of didn't like each other but it was only by winning wars such as the victories under King naresuan that the Thai Kingdom's survival was ensured and once it was safeguarded it experienced an Epoch of Peace there was still war and so on of course but just not as much in 1688 there was a revolution in response to the growing Western influence the aota kingdom ultimately fell in 1767 after a Burmese invasion in which the capital was sacked and burned out of the ashes Siam rose again under taxine the great who battled and built and went a bit crazy and ended up toppled in a coup he and his sons were executed by this man who took power and ushered say into a new era of cultural Brilliance and of course fighting Burma under King Mongkut say began adopting Western Technologies and education methods he was the king portrayed in the famous musical The King and I etc etc his successor abolished slavery and while there was conflict with France in which it lost territory sayam remained the only Southeast Asian country country not to be colonized by a western power reforms aside the population of most of Siam was poor and the reality of absolute monarchy did not change until 1932 when a bloodless revolution saw the country acquire its first constitution the revolution's leader became a military dictator and changed siam's name to Thailand during World War II Japan invaded and Thailand allied with it and permitted Japanese troops to pass through in order to attack the British in Burma and Malaya after a coup in 1957 another nationalist came to power who oversaw various improvements a decade of dictatorship under this man here sparked an uprising that ended in his downfall the result of this however was more dictatorship and stronger repression of freedom and a long era of Insurgency wherein the government fought against Communists things were uneasy and unsettled and the country's economic growth was bogged down by the 1997 Asian financial crisis natural disasters struck hard and conflict inflamed the south then there was another coup and the country was wrecked by protests skirmishes and violent military responses a general election failed to quell the unrest and protests burst out a new another coup saw the military take power and there were more protests demanding [Applause] [Music] reforms Thailand today is classed as newly industrialized and sports a very high level of human development and is one of the most visited countries in the world and everybody loves their food but what awaits Thailand in the coming years comment below but for now bye-bye [Music]