Vietnamese monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death in Saigon to protest the persecution of Buddhists by Catholic South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's administration.

Bhikkhu

Buddhist monk

A bhikkhu is an ordained male in Buddhist monasticism. Male, and female monastics (bhikkhunī), are members of the Sangha.

Thích Quảng Đức

Vietnamese Buddhist monk (c. 1897–1963)

Thích Quảng Đức was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who died by self-immolation at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government of Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Catholic. Photographs of…

Ho Chi Minh City

Municipality in Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon, is the most populous city in Vietnam with a population of 14,002,598 in 2025.

Buddhism in Vietnam

Buddhism in Vietnam, as practiced by the Vietnamese people, is a form of East Asian Mahayana Buddhism. It is the main religion in Vietnam. According to the Vietnamese government's 2019 National Population and Housing Census, approximately 4.6 million individuals identified as…

Ngo Dinh Diem

President of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963

Ngô Đình Diệm was a South Vietnamese politician who was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955) and later the first president of South Vietnam from 1955 until his capture and assassination during the CIA-backed 1963 coup d'état.