Norodom Sihanouk was born on October 31, 1922 in Phnom Penh, French Indochina. He was the king of Cambodia from 1941 to 1955, during this period he challenged the French and grant Cambodia independence in 1953.
In 1955, King Norodom Sihanouk gave up the throne. He then set up a political movement called Sangkum Reastr Niyum .With global geopolitical shift, Prince Sihanouk lost his political balance and after he was overthrown in March 1970. Sihanouk formed a government in exile called the Royal Government of National Union that included the Khmer Rouge, this seized power on April 17, 1975 and Sihanouk served as the head of state later resigned and he was placed under house arrest at the Royal Palace by the Khmer Rouge in 1976.
When the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979, he was exiled again.
In 1980, he founded a political party called FUNCINPEC (National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, and Peaceful Cambodia), to fight against the Vietnamese backed regime. His political force joined Son San's Khmer People's National Liberation Front and the Khmer Rouge to form the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea with himself as the president.
Sihanouk began to negotiate with Hun Sen for a solution to the Cambodian conflict in 1987 that lead to the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement. Time later on September 1993, Prince Norodom Sihanouk was once again crowned King.
Sihanouk was married six times. His last wife was Norodom Monineath. Sihanouk had 14 children. He had suffered prostate cancer and died on October 15, 2012 while on a trip to Beijing, China from a heart attack, aged 89. He is the symbol of national unity, a political icon for the majority of Cambodians.