King Ananda Mahidol or Rama VIII (royal name Phra Chaoyuhua Ananda Mahidol) (September 20, 1925 - June 9, 1946) was the eighth king of the Chakri dynasty of Thailand.

Ananda Mahidol was born in Heidelberg, Germany, where his parents, Mahidol Adulyadej Prince of Songkhla (son of king Chulalongkorn) and Somdej Phra Sri Nakarindhara were studying at that time. He spent his youth mostly in Switzerland after his father died in 1929.

On March 2, 1935 he was elected by the Thai parliament and government to succeed his uncle, king Prajadhipok (Rama VII), who abdicated earlier due to political quarrels with the new republican government as well as health problems. The republican government worried about the king influencing politics too much and therefore chose the young Ananda Mahidol, only 9 years old at that time and attending school in Lausanne, Switzerland.

At age 13 he visited Thailand for the first time, together with his mother and his brother Bhumibol Adulyadej, but only after the end of World War II did he return, in December 1945, for a second visit. He quickly won the hearts of his people. However on June 9, 1946, he was found shot dead in his bedroom, only four days before he was scheduled to return to Switzerland to continue his education.

His death is still a mystery. Several palace officials were executed in the 1950s for complicity in regicide, but the commonest explanation today is that he shot himself accidentally while cleaning his gun. William Stevenson's The Revolutionary King, written with cooperation from his successor King Bhumibol Adulyadej, exculpates those executed and suggests he was murdered by the notorious Japanese tactician Major Tsuji Masanobu. Evidence for this claim is at best skimpy.

His brother Bhumibol Adulyadej succeeded him. Ananda Mahidol was never crowned as king, but his brother posthumously gave him the full royal title of the nine-fold umbrella.

External links

• ' The Revolutionary King ' (http://www.iht.com/IHT/PB/00/pb122899.html/)

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