Mandalay

King Mindon founded Mandalay in 1857 because a prophecy said a city would be built at the foot of the hill in the 2,400th year of Buddhism, and the British deposed his successor in 1885, ending the monarchy after twenty-eight years. The palace burned in 1945 during fighting and was rebuilt; the Kuthodaw pagoda holds the world's largest book, 729 marble slabs each in its own shrine.