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Pharology - Lighthouses of Asia - Thailand

AS09: Lighthouses of Thailand

Archaeological evidence suggests that Bronze Age settlers lived in Thailand in 4,000 BC. The Thai nation was founded in the thirteenth century and was able to resist colonisation by a European power. The monarchy of Siam, as Thailand used to be known, was both strong and wily at the time of the European expansionist policies. By carefully playing Britain and France, one off against the other, King Mongkut and his son, Chulalongkorn, were able to largely retain the independence of Siam, although they could not prevent the loss of Laos and western Cambodia to France, or Kelantan, a state in Northeast peninsular Malaysia, to Britain.