Tomb of Mughal Emperor

Born in 1775 into the prestigious imperial dynasty, a famous poet Zafar became the Mughal Emperor at the late age of 62 when his father died in 1837.  Then, in 1857, came the first revolt of the Indians against the British occupation.  Zafar found himself with part of his family exiled to Rangoon in British-controlled Burma. He died in Rangoon in 1862.   The location of the grave of Zafar Shah is in dispute. He was buried at the back of his enclosure, but by 1903 the location of his grave was forgotten. After some protests, the British were forced to construct a stone slab to mark the site of his grave. The location of his burial was once again relocated in 1991, when excavators found the skeleton of the last Mughal emperor there. A mausoleum was constructed and inaugurated in 1994.

UN General Secretary U Thant House Museum

U Thant was two terms the Secretary-General of the United Nations at the height of the Cold War.  U Thant lived in his Rangoon house in the 1950s when he was Secretary to Prime Minster U Nu.  Now the house is used as a museum to U Thant’s life and works as well as a public event centre since 2014.

U Thant funeral crisis:    U Thant funeral crisis was a series of protests and riots in the then-Burmese capital of Yangon.  He died in New York City 25 November 1974 and his body reached Rangoon’s Airport on 1 December 1974.  In response to the Burmese military government’s refusal to give him a state funeral, student activists from the Rangoon University took his body away from the official funeral procession and marched it to the university campus where they held their own ceremony for him. On 11 December, the government stormed the university grounds, seized the body.  Citywide riots followed this crackdown, and the government declared martial law.  Thousands of protesters were arrested and at least eighteen died.  Finally came to an agreement to bury the body in a new mausoleum next to the Shwedagon Pagoda.

Yangon Secretariat
For over 120 years it has the epicenter of countless changes in the political progression of Myanmar. It contains the Yangon Parliament House where Burma’s self-rule first began and the location of the assassination of General Aung San, the father of Modern Myanmar, and other cabinet members and guard on 19 July 1947. When the Myanmar government relocated the capital to Nay Pyi Taw in 2005, the complex was mostly abandoned and left to decay behind locked gates and imposing fences.  In 2012 it was done the beautiful renovation and now it’s open to public.