History of Myanmar I

Oct 06, 2007 22:42:29

History of Myanmar Part I Myanmar's prehistory begins with the migration of four groups into the country: the first were were the Pyu from either present-day Tibet or India, then the Mons from what is now Cambodia, then came Mongol Burmans from the eastern Himalayas and later came Thai tribes from northern Thailand. The 11th-century Burman kingdom of Bagan was the first to gain control of the territory that is present-day Myanmar, but it failed to unify the disparate racial groups and collapsed before Kublai Khan's Tartar invasion in 1287. For the next 250 years, Burma remained in chaos, and the territory was not reunified until the mid-16th century when a series of Taungoo kings extended their domain and convincingly defeated the Siamese. In the 18th century, the country fractured again as Mons and hill tribes established their own kingdoms. In 1767, the Burmans invaded Siam and sacked Ayuthaya, forcing the Siamese to move their capital to Bangkok. Occasional border clashes and British imperialist ambitions caused the British to invade in 1824, and then again in 1852 and 1883. Burma became a part of British India and the British built the usual colonial infrastructure, and developed the country into a major rice exporter. Indians and Chinese arrived with the British to complicate the racial mix.