Welcome to this week’s History Thread!

Today’s picture: On June 11, 1963, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức immolated himself in Saigon. Quang Duc was a legendary figure in Vietnamese Buddhism, having spent decades building the Mahayana faith across Indochina and constructing dozens of temples. Living under Ngo Dien Diem’s repressive South Vietnamese government, he (like most Buddhists) chafed at the preferential treatment granted by Diem to the minority Catholic population, which included forced conversion of Buddhists to Catholicism and the murder of protesters and political dissidents. Duc sat down at a crowded intersection and allowed other monks to douse him with gasoline and set him aflame, as Vietnamese spectators and American journalists captured the scene for posterity. Duc left behind a final message to be released after his death:

Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngô Đình Diệm to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerables, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organize in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.

This horrific incident highlighted not only Diem’s cruelty (his sister-in-law, Madame Nhu, celebrated Duc’s death by proclaiming it a “barbecue” and wishing for more monks to follow suit) but, through the sheer graphicness of the images (captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph) made it impossible for Americans to continue ignoring what was going on Vietnam. Along with further crackdowns by Diem on the Buddhists, it also rendered Diem’s regime untenable, leading to a conspiracy between the Kennedy Administration, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and a coterie of South Vietnamese generals to overthrow and kill Diem in November 1963.

Fortunately, all of South Vietnam’s problems were instantly resolved by this wise decision.