อนุสาวรีย์ ประชาธิปไตย เห็นภาพนี้แล้ว รักชาติ ขึ้นมาทันที

Democracy Monument Night Shot, originally uploaded by Thailand Photo.

The monument was commissioned in 1939 by the military ruler of Thailand, Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram (known as Phibun), to commemorate the June 1932 military coup which led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in what was then the Kingdom of Siam. Phibun saw the monument as the centre of what he envisaged as a new, westernised Bangkok, "making Thanon Ratchadamnoen the Champs-Élysées and the Democracy Monument the Arc de Triomphe.

The centrepiece of the Monument is a carved representation of the Thai Constitution of 1932, on top of two golden offering bowls above a round turret. The Constitution is symbolically guarded by four wing-like structures, representing the four branches of the Thai armed forces - army, navy, air force and police - which carried out the 1932 coup.