User:Floridasurfer30

The history of Thailand begins with the migration of the Tai- Lao speaking people from their ancestral home in southern China into mainland southeast Asia around the 10th century AD. Prior to this, Indianized kingdoms such as the Mon, Khmer and Malay kingdoms ruled the region. The Thais established their own states starting with Sukhothai, Chiang Saen and Chiang Mai as Lanna Kingdom and then Ayutthaya kingdom. These states fought each other and were under constant threat from the Khmers, Burma and Vietnam. Much later, the European colonial powers threatened in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but Thailand survived as the only Southeast Asian state to avoid colonial rule. After the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand endured sixty years of almost permanent military rule before the establishment of a democratic elected-government system.