Adventure
travel in Nepal, Asia and the Middle East
Shopping
Handicrafts from Nepal, Wide collection Products from Nepal.
visit: www.myshopasia.com
History
While
Nepal is an ancient land, it has only been a country for about
300 years. Independent hill states ruled the area until the
late 18th century, when Prince Prithvi Narayan Shah united
all of what is now Nepal. The nation became a constitutional
monarchy in 1950, before slipping into a dictatorship eight
years later. Demonstrations in the late 1980s against oppressive
rule
resulted
in multiparty elections in May 1991.
The transition to democracy has not been an easy one, however.
The country is plagued by an ineffective bureaucracy, corruption
and an ever-widening gap between rich and poor. Partly because
of these problems, Maoist rebels based in western Nepal have
been fighting a small-scale war against the central government
since the mid-1990s.
In June 2001 the popular King Birendra and much of the royal
family was killed in the palace by a gunman, apparently the
crown prince, who himself died of a gunshot wound sustained
that night (believed to be self-inflicted). Public grief and
conspiracy theories about the unknown motivation of the massacre
paralyzed the country for several weeks. The country's monarch
is now the late king's brother, Gyanendra.
