Tibetan monks, surrounded by soldiers of

Tibetan monks, surrounded by soldiers of the Chinese Popular Liberation Army, lay down arms in April 1959 somewhere in the Tibetan mountains after an unsuccessful armed uprising against Chinese rule. As a result, the Dalai Lama, the head of Tibet's Buddhist clergy and thus the region's spiritual leader, fled with some 100,000 supporters to northern India, where a government-in-exile was established. The Chinese ended the the former dominance of the lamas (Buddhist monks) and destroyed many monasteries. Tibet (Xizang), occupied in 1950 by Chinese Communist forces, became an "Autonomous Region" of China in September 1965, but the majority of Tibetans have continued to regard the Dalai Lama as their "god-king" and to resent the Chinese presence, leading to intermittent unrest. (Photo credit should read -/AFP via Getty Images)