Apart from what happened here in the 1970's, which I will blog about in the coming days, I was aware that I didn't actually know too much about Cambodia. I thought that I'm probably not the only one so I had the idea of doing a bit of reading and writing a short history of the country for those that want to learn a bit more...
It's in the year 802AD where things kicked off as Jayavaraman II started calling himself 'Universal Monarch' (I have no idea what happened to Jayavaraman I!?) and built the first temples. All was going swimmingly until important people started falling out.
In the 10th century, Suryavarman I took charge and brought everyone back together and in the next century Suryavarman II reigned. He asked for Ankgor Wat to be built and started wars with his next door neighbours, Vietnam. Vietnam fought back though and killed him in the end, obviously annoying the Cambodian royal family a bit.
Years later one of the murdered kings cousins created an army that beat the Vietnamese. After winning he made himself King Jayavarman VII. This guy was a big fan of buildings and set about building loads more colossal structures near Angkor Wat (Including the Terrace of the Elephants in the photo). He got a bit carried away though and spent all the countries money on it! Eventually word got out there was no money left and the Angkorian Empire fell and 150 years of war with Thailand began.
Then, for nearly 300 years smaller kings (As in not very powerful. Not as in not very tall!) ruled Cambodia but had to do what Thailand or Vietnam said. Then France arrived and weren't very nice. They basically made the king sign things to say Cambodia was no longer it's own country but actually part of France (A colony). Cambodians weren't very happy with this so there were a couple of years of fights but after that it was all a bit quiet until the end of World War II.
In 1953, King Sihanouk began a royal mission to make Cambodia it's own country again and was successful later that year. In 1965 the same king fell out with America because he thought they were after him, this led to the Americans bombing Cambodia and killing thousands. 1970 saw the king visit France and while he was away two people took power from him, one of them being his cousin!
This led to the horrible things that happened to millions of Cambodian people in the 1970s. Since this period ended in 1999 things have been much quieter and the country has tried to get back to normal. Twenty-first century Cambodia is still one of the poorest countries in Asia but is slowly getting back up again after being knocked off of it's feet a few times and the people that live here are looking to a better future.
There we have it; a brief history of Cambodia. I enjoyed learning all of this and I hope you did too.
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