UCLA Asia Institute
Today in Asian History
July 6
1935 Tenzin Gyatso, the future 14th Dalai Lama, was born. Tenzin Gyatso was two years old when a committee of lamas (Tibetan Buddhist monks) determined that he was the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lamas are believed to be incarnations of Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of Compassion. In 1940, the boy formally assumed the title of Dalai Lama. He was fifteen when the People's Liberation Army moved into Tibet. The teenager was made a titular part of the government of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. In 1959, there was an abortive Tibetan rebellion against Chinese domination and the Dalai Lama fled into exile in India. Since then he has headed the Tibetan exile community based in Dharamsala.1940 As part of its war mobilization, the Japanese government began dissolving all political parties.
The Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
"Dalai Lama means different things to different people. To some it means that I am a living Buddha, the earthly manifestation of Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion. To others it means that I am a god-king. During the late 1950s it meant that I was a Vice-President of the Steering Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China. Then when I escaped into exile, I was called a counterrevolutionary and a parasite. But none of these are my ideas. To me Dalai Lama is a title that signifies the office I hold. I myself am just a human being, and incidentally a Tibetan, who chooses to be a Buddhist monk." Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama, 1990.
The Tibetan government in exile has an extensive website which offers, among other resources, the Nobel Prize announcement and the Dalai Lama's acceptance speech.
1972 TANAKA Kakuei became Japanese prime
minister, a corruption scandal drove him from office in 1974.
1976 Zhu De, Chinese Communist military leader,
died at 89.
1997 Second Prime Minister Hun Sen ended a
power sharing arrangement with Cambodia's First Prime Minister Norodom
Ranariddh by sending the military into the streets and claiming control.
1976 Zhu De, Chinese Communist Party military leader, passed away at age 89. Zhu was born in 1886 in Sichuan, a southwestern province. In his 20s, Zhu joined the rebellion that overthrew the Manchu Qing dynasty. He was in his 30s and studying in Germany when he joined the Chinese Communist Party. He joined the 1927 Communist-led uprisings and linked up with Mao Zedong. The two built the Red Army and led it in its famous Long March, which took more than a year and covered 6,000 miles, ending in northern China in 1935. Zhu led the guerrilla resistance to the Japanese invasion and later the military struggle against the Nationalists for control of China. While he was a member of the CCP Politburo, he focused on the military and did not play a significant role in government policy after the CCP came to power in 1949.
The AI "Today in Asian History" page was compiled by Clayton Dube. He welcomes your comments and suggestions. Send them to <cdube@isop.ucla.edu>.
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