| Singapore
was founded as a British trading colony in 1819.
It joined the Malaysian Federation in 1963 but separated
two years later and became independent. It subsequently
became one of the world's most prosperous countries
with strong international trading links (its port
is the world's busiest in terms of tonnage handled)
and with per capita GDP equal to that of the leading
nations of Western Europe.
The first records of Singapore's
existence are in Chinese texts from the 3rd century
AD. The island was an outpost of the Sumatran
Srivijaya empire and originally bore the Javanese
name Temasek. Temasek rose to become a significant
trading city, but subsequently declined. There
are few remnants of old Temasek in Singapore,
but archaeologists in Singapore have uncovered
evidence of the civilization, as well as other
settlements. Between the 16th and early 19th centuries,
Singapore was a part of the Sultanate of Johore.
During the Malay-Portugal wars in 1617, Singapore
was set ablaze by Portuguese troops.
In 1819, Sir Thomas Stamford
Raffles, an official with the British East India
Company, signed a treaty with the Sultan of Johore.
He also established Singapore as a trading post
and settlement, which saw instant growth and immigration
from various ethnic groups. Singapore was later
made a crown colony by Britain in 1867. After
a series of colonial territorial expansions, the
British Empire soon raised Singapore's status
to that of an entrepot town, due to its strategic
location along the busy shipping routes connecting
Europe to China.
During World War II, the
Imperial Japanese Army invaded Malaya and the
surrounding region in the Battle of Malaya, which
culminated in the Battle of Singapore. The British
were unprepared and swiftly defeated, despite
having more troops. They surrendered to the Japanese
on 15 February 1942. The Japanese renamed Singapore
as Syonan-to, Japanese for "Light of the
South", and occupied it until the British
arrived to repossess the island a month after
the Japanese surrender to the United States in
September 1945.
Singapore became a self-governing
state in 1959 with Yusof bin Ishak as its first
head of state and Lee Kuan Yew from the People's
Action Party (PAP) as its first Prime Minister,
after the 1959 elections. The Merger Referendum
passed in 1962 and led to Singapore joining the
Federation of Malaysia along with Malaya, Sabah
and Sarawak as a state with autonomous powers
in September 1963. Singapore was expelled from
the federation on 7 August 1965 after heated ideological
conflict developed between the state government
formed by PAP and the Federal government in Kuala
Lumpur. It gained official sovereignty two days
later on 9 August 1965, which later became Singapore's
National Day. Malaysia was the first country to
recognise it as an independent nation.
The fledgling nation had
to become self-sufficient, and faced problems
including mass unemployment, housing shortages
and lack of land and natural resources such as
petroleum. During Lee Kuan Yew's term as prime
minister from 1959 to 1990, his administration
immediately curbed unemployment, raised the standard
of living and implemented a large-scale public
housing programme. The country economic infrastructure
was developed, the threat of racial tension was
eliminated and an independent national defence
system was created. Singapore evolved from a developing
nation to first world status towards the end of
the 20th century.
In 1990, Goh Chok Tong succeeded
Lee as Prime Minister. During his tenure, the
country tackled the economic impacts of the 1997
Asian financial crisis and the 2003 SARS outbreak,
as well as terrorist threats posed by the Jemaah
Islamiah (JI) post-September 11 and the Bali bombings.
In 2004 Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest son of Lee
Kuan Yew, became the third prime minister.
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