Bangkok insights
All traveling needs before visit Thailand
- Basic Information
- History
- Thailand history
- Bangkok founding
- Bangkok in early period
- Bangkok reformation
- Modern Bangkok
- Geography
- Visa
- Getting to Bangkok
- Getting around
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River Side |
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Wireless Rd. |
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Sukhumvit Rd. |
Damnern Saduak Floating Market and Rose Garden (Departure from Bangkok) |
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Ayuthaya by Pearl of Siam Cruising / SSMAP (Departure from Bangkok) |
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Thonburi Klongs Wat Arun And Grand Palace (Departure from Bangkok) |
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Elephant and Crocodile Show (Samphan) (Departure from Bangkok) |
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Jim Thompson House & Suan Pakkad Palace (Departure from Bangkok) |
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Thailand's history
Sukhothai Era (A.D. 1247-1350)
Siam, Thailand’s previous name, has a long history dating back about seven hundred years. In 13th century, Sukhothai had been the center of the first Siam kingdom until its decline in 14th century.
World's history
1271 : Marco Polo starts on his alleged trip to China. He returns in 1295 to Venice.
1281 :After conquering most of Asia, Kublai Khan invades Japan, but a Typhoon destroys most of the fleet. 70,000 troops die in the storm - the worst naval disaster in history.
1300 : Gunpowder is being used for warfare in England after being introduced to Europe in 1242.
1323 : The Aztec tribe is forced to flee their homeland to a remote island in a lake because they sacrificed a young Colhua princess from the neighboring tribe to their god instead of marrying her to a prince.
1346 : English defeat the French at battle of Crecy.
Ayutthaya Era (A.D. 1350-1767)
The new further south state, Ayutthaya, began to challenge and deny Sukhothai's power. In 1378, Ayutthaya ceded the Sukhothai frontier cities and then Sukhothai became a tributary state of Ayuthaya.
1431 : Joan of Arc burned at the stake. She is credited with leading the French in victory over the English. The English had been dominating France since Agincourt. The Welsh Longbow was a major reason. Joan of Arc was helped by artillery that could now damage castle walls.
1492 : Queen Isabella's advisers correctly state that China could be visited by going West since they knew the earth was round, but that a ship would run out of supplies first since it was so far. Chistopher Columbus uses some creative math and Fortunately for Christopher Columbus the Americas got in the way. He lands in the Bahamas. He dies in 1506 still thinking he had landed in Asia.
1498 : Captain Vasco da Gama becomes the first European to travel to India via sea.
The Ayutthaya kingdom's power had dominated in Chaopraya river basin for 417 years. The magnificent arts and culture were formed and transmitted to the other ancient kingdoms to be the unique glory and wealth. Ayutthaya was captured by Burmese twice in 1569, and the last final severe defeated in 1767.
1511 : The Portuguese arrived South East Asia, and Malacca becomes a Portuguese colony. Malacca is strategically important giving access to the spice trade.
1588 : Philip II's Spanish Armada of 130 ships attack England, but are defeated.
1618 : The Dutch ruled Indonesia. They were drawn to Jakarta, a fishing village which they called Batavia, for the spice trade.
Thonburi Era (A.D. 1768-1782)
After the fall of Ayutthaya, phraya Taksin, half Siamese-Chinese, one of the escape commander assembled his army and strengthened his power and conquested other fragmented independent Siamese groups. He consolidated the whole kingdom and defeat Burmese successfully in 1770. The new capital was established at Thonburi, the south on the left bank of Chaopraya River near Wat Arun, because the destruction of Ayutthaya was severe destroyed and burnt.
At the end of King Taksin’s reign, he slightly increased the symptoms of paranoid and then there was a quiet rebellion in the court. King Taksin was taken into captivity. During that time, Chaopraya Chakri, his brother, was commanding at the Cambodian war. Upon hearing the news, he led troops back to Thonburi in 1782 and suppressed the rebellion. The people and court officers welcomed him with much relief and requested his ascension to the throne.
1770 : Captain James Cook lands on the more hospitable east coast of Australia and claims it for Britain.
1776 : The American colonies declare themselves independent of Great Britain.
1778 : James Cook is the first European to travel to Hawaii.
1780 : Industrial Revolution Begins.
Rattanakosin Era (A.D. 1782-present)
King Rama I, II and III (A.D. 1782-1880)
Chaopraya Chakri, the first of the present dynasty, was crown the King Rama I in 1782 and relocated the capital to the opposite river bank at the village of olive plum so called Bang-kok. King Rama I named the new capital “Krungthep” with its longest tail that hard to remember. King Rama I rekindled the nation’s spirit by restoring the arts and cultures in all aspects like it used to be in Ayutthaya. During his reign and the next 2 kings, Siam had still fought with Burmese and faded off in the reign of King Rama III. Meanwhile the western colonial power slightly dramatic increased.
1783 : First manned hot air balloon flight in Paris by Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier and Marquis D'Arlands.
1789 : The French Revolution begins with the storming of the Bastille to free prisoners. Oddly enough the Bastille was empty of any real prisoners.
1799 : The Dutch East India Company liquidated and the Dutch government took control over the islands of Indonesia.
1805 : Napoleon is crowned Emperor of France.
1807 : Abolition of Slave Trade in Britain.
1815 : Napoleon defeated at Waterloo.
1825 : World's first railway opened in Britain
1840 : The first postage stamps (Penny Post) came into use in Britain
1842 : China cedes Hong Kong island to Britain after the First Opium War.
King Rama IV (A.D. 1880-1880)
King Rama IV was the first king to embark seriously on reform based on Western models and employed western experts and advisers to court. The musical “The King and I” is the consequence of this time.
1853 :The United States wanted to use Japanese ports as supply bases for its commercial fleet. Japan accepted the U.S. demands and opened its door for the first time in two centuries.
1856 : Louis Pasteur shows that disease is spread from tiny, little organisms, instead of bad vapors. Germ theory is born.
1858 : The British overthrow the Moguls and take control of India.
1861-1865 : American civil war.
1863 : The world's first underground railway opened in London.
1866 : The United States and Europe are connected by a 2,500 mile long telegraph cable.
1876 : Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.
King Rama V carried on his father's reform policy and modernized Siam on the western inventions in all aspects. He traveled neighbor countries and had twice long trips to Europe to made strong support with Czar Nicolus of Russia and Germany, not only Britain and France that dominated the far-east at time. King Rama V kept Siam an independent state amid the colonial crisis.
1883 : The island volcano of Krakatoa in Indonesia brilliantly explodes. 36,000 people are killed. The tide is influenced in England and fine volcanic dust settles in New York. The sound of the explosion is heard 3,000 miles away.
1885 : Britain captured Mandalay after a brief battle; Burma became a province of British India.
1891 : Britain sent Sir William Raffles to establish a trading post in Singapore and the three British colonies of Penang, Malacca, and Singapore came to be known as the Straits Settlements.
King Rama VI was the first king to have been educated abroad at Harrow School and Oxford University in England. Like his father, he also modernized Siam while still upholding traditional Thai values and royal authority. King Rama VI sought the idea of liberal constitution like as it was in Europe and started modeling of Dusitani, a small village of democratic model in the his palace.
1904 : Japanese sink half the Russian fleet in the opening move of the Russo-Japanese war. The Russians badly underestimate the modern Japanese fleet which a year later destroys most of the remaining navy. The Japanese used the new Marconi radios to scout for the oncoming Russian Navy.
King Rama VII, King Rama VI’s younger brother, began his reign on the age of world economic depression in 1930s and the strong idea of liberal constitutional system of government like as the international political community countries. King Rama VII seeked the political reform was inevitable. However, the king was still in the process of trying to convince the conservatives in the supreme state about the need to become liberal. In 1932, the bloodless revolution put an end to absolute monarchy and created a democratic government with the king as the nominal head of state. Siam in early stage of constitutional government alternated between democratic election and military rule. King Rama VII abdicated in March 1935 after he was forced to flee to England.
1912 : The unsinkable Titanic goes down with over 1,500 souls. A steward from the White Star Line is reported as having said, "Not even God Himself can sink this ship". "Hubris" is what the Greeks called it.
1914 : Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina provoking WWI
1915 : Mahatma Gandhi launches a campaign of nonviolent resistance against British rule in India.
1917 : Bolshevik Revolution: Czar Nicholas abdicates; Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, take control; Russian Soviet Socialist Republic established; capital moves to Moscow.
The new king Rama VIII was Ananda Mahidol, 10 years old son of prince Mahidol the King Rama V’s son while he lived and continued his studies in Switzerland. The political status in Siam has still not stable. In 1933, Siam entered the long period of military government and renamed the nation from “Siam” became “Thailand”.
Then WWII outbroken to the Far East by Japanese, Thailand gave up and entered into an Axis alliance in 1941 whereas the Free Thai Movement in Washington was sympathetic to the Allies and worked with Free Thai Movement in Bangkok to supported Allies efforts until the fall of Japanese in 1944.
1939 : Germany invaded Poland and the World War II in Europe began.
1940 : Japan joined the Axis powers.
1941 : Pearl Harbor brought United States into war in the Pacific.
1942 : The battle of Midway starts in the Pacific. Japan loses four carriers and more importantly 200 highly trained pilots. This is the turning point in the Pacific war and cements the role of the aircraft carrier as the dominant naval vessel.
1945 : American droped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrenders in WWII eight days after the second atom bomb is dropped.
King Rama VIII returned to Thailand in 1945. In next year, the unexpected evidence came to monarch, King Rama VIII was found shot in head dead in his room with suspicious causes.
After the mysterious death of King Rama VIII, his younger brother, Prince Bhumibol the present king, accessed to the throne.
1949 : Chairman Mao founded the People's Republic of China. Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan, became government of the Republic of China.
1949 : Half of all the gold mined in history, 22,000 tons, is in the United States.
1950-1953 : Korean war
1957 : Sputnik I becomes the first man-made satellite.
1961 : Yuri A. Gargarin becomes the first human in space and to orbit the earth
In this reign, the Thai government still had been ruled by military and democracy. There were three worst evidences of educated people uprising to request the liberal democracy in October 1973, October 1976 and May 1992.
1965 : Singapore opted out of the federation of Malaysia.
1969 : Neil Armstrong walks on the surface of the moon.
1975 : Viet Cong troops enter Saigon.
Since 1990, the Thai economy has been rapid expansion. Problems begin to emerge as the bubble economy. Loss of confidence in econony give rise to speculative attacks the probllem into a financial crisis.
1989 : The Berlin Wall was demolished and Communist East Germans were able to travel to the West
1989 : Slorc declares martial law, arrests thousands of people, including advocates of democracy and human rights, renames Burma Myanmar, with the capital, Rangoon, becoming Yangon. NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Aung San, is put under house arrest.
1991 : The first McDonald's restaurant in Beijing.
In 2006, the national celebration on the occasion of the 60th yaer of His Majesty's accession to the throne.
2003 : SARS outbreak
2008 : World economic crisis.