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Bhumibol
Adulyadej ( ภูมิพลอดุลยเดช ) ( born December 5, 1927),
officially styled "the Great" ( มหาราช, Maharaja) and also
known as Rama IX, is the current King of Thailand. Having
reigned since June 9, 1946, Bhumibol is the world's
longest-serving current Head of State and the
longest-serving monarch in Thai history.
Although Bhumibol is a constitutional monarch, he has
several times made decisive interventions in Thai politics,
including the political crisis of 2005-2006.
Bhumibol
has been widely credited with facilitating Thailand's
transition to democracy in the 1990s, although in earlier
periods of his reign he supported military regimes. He did
not oppose the September 2006 coup which overthrew the
elected government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Bhumibol uses his great wealth to fund numerous development
projects, particularly in rural areas. He is immensely
popular in Thailand, and is revered as a semi-divine figure
by many Thais.
Critics,
mostly outside Thailand, attribute this status to the
suppression of criticism of the monarchy.
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King Rama IX |
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Bhumibol was
born in the United States and educated primarily in
Switzerland. Bhumibol is also an accomplished musician,
artist, and sailor. He is one of the wealthiest people in
the world and has received many honours.
Bhumibol was
born at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts in
the United States, the youngest son of Mahidol Adulyadej,
Prince of Songkhla and son of King Chulalongkorn, and Mom
Sangwal (later Somdej Phra Sri Nakarindhara
Boromaratchachonnani). At the time of his birth, he was
known in Thailand as Phra Worawongse Ther Phra Ong Chao
Bhumibol Adulyadej (พระวรวงศ์เธอ พระองค์เจ้าภูมิพลอดุลยเดช),
reflecting the fact that his mother was a commoner.
Had he
been born just a few years earlier, before his uncle King
Prajadhipok passed a law allowing children of a prince and a
commoner to be called Phra Ong Chao (a prince of a lesser
status than Chao Fa), he would have been called Mom Chao
(the most junior class of the Thai princes), similar to his
older brother and sister.
Bhumibol was brought back to Thailand in 1928, after Prince
Mahidol finished his medical study at Harvard University.
After primary schooling at the Mater Dei school in Bangkok,
he left with the rest of his family in 1933 for Switzerland,
where he continued his secondary education at the École
Nouvelle de la Suisse romande in Chailly-sur-Lausanne, and
received the baccalauréat de lettres (high-school diploma
with major in French literature, Latin, and Greek) from the
Gymnase classique cantonal of Lausanne.
He was studying science at the University of Lausanne when
his elder brother, Phra Ong Chao Ananda Mahidol, was crowned
King of Thailand. King Ananda Mahidol then elevated his
brother and sister to the Chao Fa status, the most senior
class of the Thai princes and princesses, in 1935. They came
to Thailand briefly in 1938, but returned to Switzerland for
further study, where they stayed until 1945.
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