27 years ago today, on April 15, 1998 (March 19, 1998 lunar calendar), former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot passed away. Former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot (center) On April 15, 1998, according to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Radio, former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died of a heart attack late at night at the age of 73. Pol Pot, whose real name was Sharos-Shar, served as secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cambodia, prime minister of the Democratic Kampuchea government, and chairperson and commander-in-chief of the Supreme Committee of the Cambodian National Army. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge in July 1997. On March 18, 1970, King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia was deposed by the Lon Nol-Shrimada political clique, which was secretly controlled by the Americans. On April 30, American and South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia in a large-scale invasion, with the intention of completely destroying the North Vietnamese army that had retreated into the Cambodian-occupied territory to oppose the government. The coup d'état in March and the invasion in April aroused even more intense hatred, and the aggrieved people quickly turned to the anti-American Cambodian Communist Party and called them the Khmer Rouge. On March 29, 1975, the United States withdrew from Vietnam, Lon Nol fled abroad in April, and on the 17th the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh. But what followed was a brutal massacre of the Cambodian people, directed by the leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot. During his three years and eight months in power, Cambodia's population plummeted by a third. In terms of deaths relative to national population, it has the highest number in the world.