After several failed attempts during the 1960s to kill Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who is highly popular among Cambodians for keeping them out of the Vietnam War, Sihanouk, while on a trip abroad, is finally deposed as Head of State by two of his leading ministers, Lon Nol and Sirik Matak, on 18 Match 1970.

The following demonstrations were suppressed with extreme brutality by the Cambodian army.

Immediately after the coup, the Cambodian army called in an American spotter plane and South Vietnamese artillery during a sweep of a Vietcong sanctuary by a battalion of Cambodian troops inside Cambodia.

Several 100's deaths and thousands of arrested during the demonstrations following the coup.

5 years of war, rise of Khmer rouge to power with horrific mass slaughter, impoverishment of the country