1887 - The Burmese attack the north of the Siamese Kingdom and are beaten again.
1793 - Rama I invades Burmese provinces extending into the Malay peninsula but fails to annex the area.
1809, Dec 7 - King Rama I dies at the age of 72 and one of his sons (he had 17 plus 25 daughters) succeeds under the royal title of King Rama II. Succession rules in Siam differed from those common in Europe. The King had a free hand to chose his successor. The most likely successor to a king was not one of his sons but one of his brothers. Usually, the successor was appointed early in the reign of a king. He was given the title Prince or King of the Front Palace (Maha Uparat), and the way palaces had been built in Siam since Ayutthaya times, he indeed occupied a palace that was in front of the one of the reigning monarch. Aside from the Prince or King of the Front Palace there usually also was a Prince or King of the Rear Palace. He was designated the second in line to the throne, should the Prince or King of the Front Palace die before the reigning monarch. Normally, the Prince or King of the Rear Palace was another brother of the reigning monarch. It was at the discretion of the reigning monarch to appoint or not to appoint kings or princes of the front or the rear palaces. Often, reigning monarches appointed the occupants of the two side palaces only once in their lifetimes. Did these occupants of the side palaces die before the reigning monarch, the succession question was often left open. Theoretically in such a case the Council of Accession convened and chose one among them to succeed a deceased king. The Council of Accession was typically made up of several dozens of princes and high government officials, usually but not necessarily princes; as Siamese kings have often been industrious procreators, there has normally never been a shortage of able family members to fill all important government positions with family members (a situation that still exists in the states of the Arabian Peninsula). While succession questions were well ordered in theory, it wasn’t achieved before the Chakri Dynasty that succession matters were in practice handled as prescribed by the rules. During the Ayutthaya period, it had often been an ambitious palace official who ascended the throne instead of a designated heir, especially when the king to be was underage.
1810 - The Burmese invade areas in the Peninsula and for a while hold Phuket but are easily expelled when some 20,000 Thai men are sent to fight them.
1818 - Portugal sends an envoy, Carlos Manuel Silveira, to Siam and a commercial agreement between the two nations is concluded.
1821 - Kedah (at present a state of Malaysia, bordering Thailand, then ruled by the Burmese) is invaded by Siam and its Sultan flees to Penang.
1822 - British trade with Siam is developed.
1824 - The 1st Anglo-Burmese war (1824-1826) breaks out over disputes along the border between Burma and India, then ruled by the British. The British approach Siam to become their ally. Siam profits from the war as the conflict binds the Burmese armies to the west, thereby not posing a threat to the Siamese Kingdom to the east of Burma.
1824, Feb 24 - An alliance pact between Siam and Great Britain is concluded. Despite being an ally of Great Britain, Siam takes no active participation during the war in Burma. However, Siam grants Great Britain some of its occupied Burmese territories - the provinces of Arakan, Martaban, Tavoy and Tenesserim. The area is by and large identical with those parts of present-day Burma that reach into the narrow Malay peninsula. These are the first land concessions by Siam to the European powers Great Britain and France. More substantial concessions of Thai soil to the European colonial powers will follow. In it’s widest extend, the Siam of the early Bangkok period encompassed all of the present Laos and Cambodia, some parts of what is at present northeastern Burma, even a tip of the present Chinese Yunnan province and parts of what is today northern Malaysia. Siam had it’s longest border with the Annamese Kingdom (the present Vietnam) to the east, a shorter border with China to the north, a short, fairly horizontal border with Malaya in the south and to the east a border with Burma, pretty much the same as it is today.
