Singapore History

For Singapore, it is a neighboring country which is located down by the state at the south of Malaysia, Johor. In addition to that, Singapore is known to be one of the smallest countries in the whole of Southeast Asia. In the history of the country, Singapore used to be the home for several ancient port cities and also the possession of a few different ruling empires.

The first recorded existence of Singapore is found on Chinese texts from the 3rd century where during that time, Singapore was acting as an outpost of the Sumatran Srivijaya Empire and originally, the name of Singapore is known as Temasek. At that time, Singapore or Temasek rose to become one of the significant trading cities due to its strategic location which is shielded away from various natural influences such as sea tidal waves. In the year 1819, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles who was an official representative from the British East India Company made a treaty with the Sultan of Johore and from there, he (Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles) established Singapore to become one of the settlements functioning as a trading post. Again because of the strategic location, Singapore developed rapidly with instant growth both economically and culturally. In the year 1867, Singapore was then declared and made as a crown colony by Britain where soon follow, Singapore was then raised by the British Empire to become one of the entrepot town as Singapore at that time held a distinct advantage by acting as a stop point in between shipping routes from Europe to China.

At the time of the British Colonial, Singapore had a rather smooth growth and development though however, during the outbreak of World War II, the British armies stationed in Singapore were easily defeated as they were unprepared for the invasion by the Japanese. Shortly after the surrender of the British armies on February 15th, 1942, Singapore was then renamed to Syonan – to which literally means “Light of the South”. At the year 1945 during September, Singapore was repossessed by the British when the Japanese surrendered to the United States after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the year 1959, Singapore became a self governed state with Yusof Ishak acting as the first head of state and Lee Kuan Yew acting as the first Prime Minister. Shortly after a few years, Singapore was then admitted to become part of the Federation of Malaysia during September 1963 though however, the alliances didn’t last long enough when internal conflicts arose between the state government of Singapore and as the Federal Government in Kuala Lumpur. For this reason, Singapore was removed from the Federation on August 7th, 1965 and gained its official independence under the recognition of Malaysia at the 1965 during the 9th of August.

Though many may not know this, the name of Singapore was actually derived from two Malay words, singa which literally means lion and pura, which literally means city. Thus with both these words combined, the name Lion City or Singapore is created and widely known until today.

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