Singapore History

The pioneer of the current city of Singapore is Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles an officer of the British East India Company, who came in search of a novel harbor for the company to monitor the trade activities in the island of Malay. The voyage which came here on January 29, 1819 found a small habitation at the entrance of the Singapore River. In the year 1826 constituencies of Singapore, Penang and Melacca were amalgamated to form a solitary unit which was later entitled as the Strait Settlements

Being mentioned for the first time in Chinese texts of the 3rd century as the island of Pu Luo Chung, it later made its entrance in the 7th century as a flourishing post of merchandise of the Malaysian Buddhist Empire. The 13th century marked an important year in the history of Singapore which was mainly attributed to the member of the royal family, named Sang Nila Utama, who arrived on the island to set up his kingdom and who apparently saw a lion. It is said that the animal he saw was actually a tiger which he mistook for a lion and considering it as a positive premonition he christened the place as Singapura which means the ‘Lion City’ in Sanskrit.

The progress of Singapore continued in the 20th century but the adverse repercussions of World War two seemed to have ruptured the back bone of the economy. Experiencing a terrible defeat from Japan in 1941 the British continued to rule their colony without any future guarantee. The 1950’s turned out be a revolutionary period for the people of Singapore when they expelled the British from their territory and marched towards self government.

The results of the elections in 1959 brought a democratic government into being. Due to increasing dissensions between the leaders, Malaysia was acknowledged as a separate independent country in September 1963 whereas Singapore declared its freedom on the 9th  of August 1965. The credit of strengthening Singapore’s economic foundation goes to the Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. In the year 1990 the government went into the hands of his descendant Goh Chok who prepared the country to combat some of the most arising challenges which included the Asian War crisis and then the sprouting of the SARS virus in 2003. In 2004, the eldest follower of Lee Kuan known as Lee Hsein Loong became the third Prime Minister of Singapore.