Cambodia

The Khmer Empire and Angkor Wat — the largest temple on earth

The Khmer Empire (802–1431 CE) was the dominant civilisation of mainland Southeast Asia — controlling modern Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam at its peak, it constructed the largest pre-industrial city in the world at Angkor, whose central temple, Angkor Wat (built c. 1113–1150), remains the largest religious structure ever built.

Theravada Buddhism in Cambodia — survival through genocide

Theravada Buddhism has been the spiritual foundation of Cambodian civilisation since the 13th century CE — surviving the Khmer Rouge's attempt at complete destruction (monks killed, pagodas used as prisons and pig sties, the sangha dissolved) to re-emerge as the central institution of national reconstruction and identity.

The rediscovery of Angkor — from jungle to world wonder

Henri Mouhot's "discovery" of Angkor in 1860 CE — more accurately, his publicising of a site well-known to Cambodians and visited by previous European travellers — initiated Western fascination with the Khmer civilisation and the modern archaeology that has revealed Angkor as the world's largest pre-industrial urban complex, covering 1,000 km².

Norodom Sihanouk — Cambodia's sphinx

King/Prince/President Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012 CE) was the most protean political figure in Southeast Asian history — abdicating the throne to become a politician, achieving independence from France, being overthrown by his own general (backed by the CIA), allying with the Khmer Rouge from exile, and returning as constitutional monarch after the genocide.

The Khmer Rouge — Year Zero

The Cambodian Civil War (1970–1975 CE) and the subsequent Khmer Rouge regime (1975–1979 CE) produced one of the 20th century's worst genocides — in four years, Pol Pot's government killed between 1.5 and 2 million people (25% of Cambodia's population) in an attempt to create an agrarian utopia with no cities, money, or educated people.

The Cambodian Genocide Tribunal — accounting for the dead

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), established in 2006 CE, is the UN-backed tribunal trying surviving Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity — a process that has taken decades, cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and produced only three convictions before the deaths of most defendants effectively ended accountability.