http://specials.rediff.com/news/2006/jun/08sld1.htm

The longest reigning monarch in the world is King Bhumibol Adulyadej Rama IX of Thailand.

He is also the world's longest ruling head of State.

The 78-year-old king will have ruled Thailand for 60 years on June 9, 2006.

An accident of fate gave him the throne at the age of 19. When his brother, the 20-year-old Ananda Mahidol Rama VIII, then the king of Thailand, was discovered dead with a bullet through his head in his bedroom at the palace in Bangkok, Bhumibol ascended the throne.

Fate had already participated earlier in his future: his father, the Prince of Songkhla, never ruled Thailand. And because his wife, Bhumibol and Rama VIII's mother, was a commoner the two brothers were designated as Thailand's most junior or lesser princes, with little chance of inheriting the crown. But when their uncle abdicated, without naming an heir, Bhumibol's brother was made king.

He only donned the crown in a special and ancient ceremony four years later, on May 5,1950.

He was given the ceremonial name: Phrabat Somdej Phra Paramindra Maha Bhumibol Adulyadej Mahitaladhibet Ramadhibodi Chakrinarubodindara Sayamindaradhiraj Boromanatbophit .

Bhumibol was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and lived most of his young life in the West. He was studying science at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland when he became king.

This Buddhist king is a talented jazz and blues musician -- he plays the sax, the piano, the guitar and the clarinet, he composes jazz (Candlelight Blues), has broadcast his jazz over the radio, played with legendary jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, has an honorary jazz degree, and has one of the most extensive jazz record collections in the world.

The Bangkok Post once called him the Jazzy King! He began his jazz career when he was 15 in Switzerland with a 300 franc-used saxophone; his mom would not let him play the trumpet fearing it would be too tiring for a prince.

Bhumibol speaks four languages -- French, German, Sanskrit and Thai.

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Speech by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times....

"When we were young kids growing up in America, we were told to eat our
vegetables at dinner and not leave them. Mothers said, 'think of the
starving children in India and finish the dinner.' And now I tell my
children: 'Finish your maths homework. Think of the children in India
who would make you starve, if you don't.'"