In this Burmese name, U is an honorific, not a given name.
U
Thant
သန့်
U Thant in 1963
3rd Secretary-General of the United Nations
In office 30 November 1961 – 31 December 1971
Preceded by
Dag Hammarskjöld
Succeeded by
Kurt Waldheim
Personal details
Born
(1909-01-22)22 January 1909 Pantanaw, British Burma (now Myanmar)
Died
25 November 1974(1974-11-25) (aged 65) New York City, New York, U.S.
Cause of death
Lung cancer
Resting place
Kandawmin Garden Mausolea, Yangon, Myanmar
Political party
AFPFL (1947–1958)
Spouse
Daw Thein Tin (died 1989)
Relations
Khant (brother)
Thaung (brother)
Tin Maung (brother)
Thant Myint-U (grandson)
Children
Maung Bo
Tin Maung Thant
Aye Aye Thant
Parents
Po Hnit
Nan Thaung
Alma mater
University of Rangoon
Signature
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Thant (Burmese: သန့်; MLCTS: san.[θa̰ɰ̃]; 22 January 1909 – 25 November 1974), known honorifically as U Thant (/uːθɑːnt/),[a] was a Burmese diplomat and the third secretary-general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971, the first non-Scandinavian to hold the position. He held the office for a record 10 years and one month.[b]
A native of Pantanaw, Thant was educated at the National High School and at Rangoon University. In the days of tense political climate in Burma, he held moderate views positioning himself between fervent nationalists and British loyalists. He was a close friend of Burma's first Prime Minister U Nu and served in various positions in Nu's cabinet from 1948 to 1961. Thant had a calm and unassuming demeanor that won his colleagues' respect.[2]
He was appointed Secretary-General in 1961, six weeks after his predecessor, Dag Hammarskjöld, had died in an air crash. In his first term, Thant facilitated negotiations between U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, helping to avert a global catastrophe. Later, in December that year, Thant ordered Operation Grandslam, which ended a secessionist insurgency in Congo. He was reappointed as Secretary-General on 2 December 1966, by a unanimous vote of the Security Council. During his second term Thant was well known for publicly criticizing U.S. conduct in the Vietnam War. He oversaw the entry of several newly independent African and Asian states into the UN. He refused to serve a third term, and retired in 1971.
Thant died of lung cancer in 1974. A devout Buddhist and the foremost Burmese diplomat on the international stage, he was widely admired and held in great respect by the Burmese populace. When the military government refused him any honours, riots erupted in Rangoon; these were violently crushed by the government, leaving scores of casualties.
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^"U Thant | United Nations Secretary-General". www.un.org. Archived from the original on 15 March 2023. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
Burmese script. Thant (Burmese: သန့်; MLCTS: san. [θa̰ɰ̃]; 22 January 1909 – 25 November 1974), known honorifically as UThant (/uː θɑːnt/), was a Burmese...
UThant Island (officially Belmont Island) is a small artificial island or islet in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The 100-by-200-foot (30...
The UThant funeral crisis or UThant crisis (Burmese: ဦးသန့် အရေးအခင်း) was a series of protests and riots in the then-Burmese capital of Rangoon triggered...
Burmese names were originally one syllable, as in the cases of U Nu and UThant ("U" being an honorific). In the mid-20th century, many Burmese started...
posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1964, Hammarskjöld's successor, UThant, deployed the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, which would become one of...
giving UThant the prize and the prize was at the last minute awarded to UNICEF. The rest of the committee all wanted the prize to go to UThant, for his...
in a proclamation written by McConnell and signed by Secretary General UThant at the United Nations. A month later, United States Senator Gaylord Nelson...
nationalist and writer Thakin Kodaw Hmaing; former UN Secretary-General UThant; and Aung San Suu Kyi’s mother, Khin Kyi. The mausoleum was built in memory...
supported by UThant in favour of a social philosophy based on the "standardization of human life". Aung San later became friends with UThant through their...
giving UThant the prize and the prize was at the last minute awarded to UNICEF. The rest of the committee all wanted the prize to go to UThant, for his...
Areas, which had been administered separately by the British. In 1961, UThant, the Union of Burma's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and...
of the Burmese independence movement such as General Aung San, U Nu, Ne Win and UThant are some of the notable alumni of the university. The tradition...
the offer of the Government of Sweden to host it, UN Secretary-General UThant invited Maurice Strong to lead it as Secretary-General of the Conference...
Glantaf, Cardiff. From 1989 he played with Guto Pryce in the punk band UThant, before they both joined Super Furry Animals. In 2012 Bunford performed...
Cool Cymru. He was born in Cardiff. Pryce was in the Welsh-language band UThant [cy], with his brother Iwan Pryce, Huw Bunford (also later of Super Furry...
through collaborative research and education. In 1969, UN Secretary-General UThant proposed "the establishment of a United Nations university, truly international...
Award presented at the United Nations in 1996. In 2002, he received the UThant Peace Award. In 2014, he was posthumously honored as an "interfaith visionary"...
out over the funeral of former UN Secretary-General UThant. UThant had been former prime minister U Nu's closest advisor in the 1950s and was seen as...
Secretary-General of the United Nations UThant, who was known in Burmese naming convention as Pantanaw UThant. The renowned modern painter Ba Nyan was...
Empire. Princess Ashraf Pahlavi presented United Nations Secretary General UThant with a replica of the Cylinder. The princess asserted that "the heritage...
including Roosevelt, UThant, and Randalls and Wards Islands. It also includes the small neighborhood of Marble Hill now on the U.S. mainland. Manhattan...
Andrew W. Cordier; UThant (1 June 2010). Public Papers of the Secretaries General of the United Nations: Volume 7 U. Thant 1965-1967. Columbia University...