Bhumibol Adulyadej

Biography

Bhumibol Adulyadej was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1927, while his father was studying public health at Harvard. The family returned to Thailand in 1928, and after his father's death his mother took the children to Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1933. He was schooled there and had begun studying science at the University of Lausanne when the Second World War ended.

He became king on 9 June 1946 after his elder brother, King Ananda Mahidol, died in unexplained circumstances. He went back to Switzerland to finish his studies, married Sirikit Kitiyakara in April 1950 and was crowned in Bangkok's Grand Palace on 5 May 1950.

His seventy-year reign, the longest of any Thai monarch, saw Thailand become a close U.S. ally and one of the world's fastest-growing economies, but also repeated military coups between periods of elected government. In the 1973 uprising he announced the resignation and departure of military ruler Thanom Kittikachorn, and in the 1992 Black May crisis he called coup leader Suchinda Kraprayoon and protest leader Chamlong Srimuang to a televised audience and urged a peaceful settlement. Critics pointed to the palace's links with the army and right-wing militias, and people who criticised the monarchy were often jailed or forced into exile.

Widely revered in Thailand, he was also ranked by Forbes as the world's richest royal from 2008 to 2013, with assets managed by the Crown Property Bureau. After years of illness he died at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok on 13 October 2016 and was succeeded by his son Vajiralongkorn.