Aung San Suu Kyi was born on 19 June 1945 in Rangoon, the daughter of General Aung San, the architect of Burmese independence who was assassinated in July 1947 when she was two years old. Her father's name hung over her entire life. She grew up in Rangoon and Kyoto, where her mother served as ambassador, then studied philosophy, politics, and economics at St Hugh's College, Oxford, graduating in 1967. She worked at the United Nations in New York for three years under U Thant, married British scholar Michael Aris in 1972, and spent most of the next two decades raising two sons in Oxford while pursuing graduate research in Burmese literature. She returned to Rangoon in April 1988 to nurse her dying mother — and walked into a revolution. Burma's military regime, under General Ne Win, had ruled since 1962; in August 1988 the army massacred thousands of pro-democracy protesters in the streets. Suu Kyi addressed half a million people at the Shwedagon Pagoda on 26 August 1988, standing before the largest crowd in Burmese history, her father's legacy wrapped around her like an army uniform. She co-founded the National League for Democracy in September 1988. The military placed her under house arrest at 54 University Avenue, Rangoon, in July 1989, eleven months after she entered politics. She refused a regime offer of freedom in exchange for leaving the country. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1991; her son Alexander accepted it in Oslo while she remained under house arrest. The NLD won 82 percent of parliamentary seats in the 1990 elections; the regime ignored the results and never transferred power. She was released briefly in 1995, then re-detained. Over twenty-one years, her total time under house arrest reached fifteen years. She spent the years at 54 University Avenue reading, studying Buddhist texts, learning to play the piano, and occasionally appearing at her gate to address supporters through the iron fence. Her husband Michael Aris, refused a visa, died of cancer in 1999 without seeing her again. Released definitively in November 2010, she led the NLD to a landslide victory in the 2015 elections and served as State Counsellor — effectively head of government — from April 2016 until the military coup of February 2021. Her record in government, including her defense of the military during the Rohingya crisis, destroyed the hagiographic image the Nobel committee had celebrated. She was arrested again after the coup and sentenced to a total of 27 years in prison on charges the international community denounced as politically motivated.
All Figures
Nobel Peace Laureate · Leader of the National League for Democracy · State Counsellor of Myanmar
Aung San Suu Kyi
1,945 CE
The Burmese democracy leader who spent fifteen years under house arrest on the shores of Inya Lake while the world waited, won the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia, and became both a symbol of resistance and a figure of lasting controversy.
Lifetime
Date source not yet attached to this catalogue record.
Deeper Dive
Unlock Aung San Suu Kyi's full archive.
Notable works, life timeline, places lived, key quotes, reading list — all 158 figures' deep dives open with Epoch+.