Thailand historical timeline

Chronology

1. c. 18,000 BC onward — Continuous human habitation goes back at least 20,000 years. Rice cultivation begins around 2000 BC, alongside participation in the Maritime Jade Road trading network.
2. 2nd century BC — From the time of Funan, Indian culture and religion shape the whole Indochinese peninsula. Thai Buddhism, the script and the royal vocabulary all descend from that transmission rather than from China.
3. 1238 — Pho Khun Bang Klang Hao rallies local populations against the Khmer and crowns himself first king of Sukhothai, which Thai historians count as the first Thai kingdom. Its ruins are a World Heritage park.
4. 1262 — King Mangrai relocates his capital in the north, the Lan Na kingdom that later centres on Chiang Mai and stays culturally distinct from the central plain to this day.
5. 1511 — The Portuguese arrive, the first Europeans; the French, Dutch and English follow in the 17th century.
6. 1656–1688 — Ayutthaya prospers under Narai and ranks as an Asian great power alongside China and India. Growing French influence provokes a nationalist backlash and the Siamese revolution of 1688, which closes the kingdom to Europeans for a century and a half.
7. 1765–1767 — Burma sacks Ayutthaya and the kingdom falls, the culmination of 26 wars fought between the 16th and early 19th centuries. The ruined city is now the second of the country's two great archaeological parks.
8. 1782 — Taksin, having reunified the kingdom from Thonburi, is overthrown after fifteen years by Phutthayotfa Chulalok — Rama I — who founds the Chakri dynasty and the Rattanakosin capital that is now Bangkok. The dynasty still reigns.
9. 1851–1868 — King Mongkut signs the Bowring Treaty, the first of many unequal treaties, which nevertheless opens trade; Chulalongkorn then accelerates reform.
10. 19th–20th century — Thailand is the only Southeast Asian state never colonised by a Western power, partly because Britain and France kept it as a buffer between their empires. That single fact explains why its cities have no colonial quarter.
11. 1932 — The Siamese revolution by the Khana Ratsadon ends the absolute monarchy.
12. 1939 — Siam is renamed Thailand. Before this year the country was known internationally as Siam, which is why older books and the cat are called something else.
13. 2006 and 2014 — Political conflict between supporters and opponents of Thaksin Shinawatra produces two coups. The country now operates under the 2017 Constitution.