25 Facts About Ananda Mahidol

Ananda Mahidol was the eighth king of Siam from the Chakri dynasty, titled Rama VIII.

Ananda Mahidol returned to Thailand in December 1945, but six months later, in June 1946, he was found shot dead in his bed.

Ananda Mahidol is his given name, and is one word in Thai.

Ananda Mahidol was posthumously renamed again in 1996, so as to give him an auspiciously long name similar to the names of Mongkut, Chulalongkorn, Vajiravudh, and Prajadhipok.

Ananda Mahidol was the first son of Prince Mahidol Adulyadej of Songkla and Mom Sangwan who were studying there at the time.

Ananda Mahidol was the first Thai King to be born outside of the country.

Ananda Mahidol went with his parents to Paris, Lausanne, and then to Massachusetts, when in 1927, his uncle, King Prajadhipok, issued a royal edict elevating him to the higher princely class of Phra Worawong Ther Phra Ong Chao.

The family returned to Thailand in 1928 after Prince Ananda Mahidol finished his medical studies at Harvard University.

Prince Mahidol died at age 37 in 1929, when Ananda Mahidol was just four years old.

Ananda Mahidol briefly attended Debsirin School in Bangkok before the revolution in 1932 ended the absolute monarchy and raised the possibility that King Prajadhipok might abdicate.

Prince Ananda Mahidol spent most of his youth in Switzerland.

However, when King Prajadhipok's abdication appeared imminent, the prince's mother was approached by a member of the government, asking for her opinion about Ananda Mahidol succeeding as monarch.

Ananda Mahidol eventually succeeded to the throne in 1910 as King Rama VI.

On 2 March 1935, Prince Ananda Mahidol was elected by the National Assembly and the Thai government to succeed his uncle, King Prajadhipok, as the eighth king of the Chakri dynasty.

In 1938, at age thirteen, Ananda Mahidol visited Siam for the first time as its monarch.

King Ananda Mahidol was away from the country, as he had returned to Switzerland to complete his studies, and Pridi Phanomyong served as regent in his absence.

Ananda Mahidol returned for a second visit in December 1945 with a degree in law.

Foreign observers believed that Ananda Mahidol did not want to be king and felt his reign would not last long.

The court ruled that King Ananda Mahidol had been assassinated, but that Chaliao had not been proved guilty and that neither of the pages could have fired the fatal shot.

King Ananda Mahidol was cremated at Sanam Luang, Bangkok, on 29 March 1950, four years after his death.

Masanobu was a former Japanese intelligence officer who had been active in Thailand during the war and, at the time of Ananda Mahidol's death, was hiding out in Thailand for fear of being prosecuted for his war crimes.

Ananda Mahidol was found lying on his back in his bed, not wearing his glasses, without which he was almost blind.

Ananda Mahidol had a small bullet wound in his forehead and a somewhat larger exit wound in the back of his head.

Kruger, who had unprecedented access to members of the inner circle of the Thai royal family, drew the conclusion that Ananda Mahidol's death was most probably an 'accidental suicide'.

Statue of King Ananda Mahidol, erected by his brother, King Bhumibol, Wat Suthat, Bangkok, 1959.