In 1606, an audacious Portuguese explorer and mercenary named Filipe De Brito e Nicote, who established temporary Portuguese rule in Burma, stole the biggest bell on earth from the fabled Shwedagon Pagoda in what was then Rangoon.
The bell, known as the Great Bell of Dhammazedi , a behemoth cast of 295 tonnes of copper, gold, silver and tin alloy, unfort…