Singapore

The founding of Singapore — Raffles and the fishing village

Singapore's founding as a British trading post (6 February 1819 CE) by Stamford Raffles transformed a small fishing village into one of the world's great ports within decades — Raffles chose the island for its strategic position at the tip of the Malay Peninsula commanding the strait between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

Singapore's port — the world's most efficient crossroads

Singapore's port (established 1819, now among the world's busiest) handles one-seventh of the world's container shipping and half of the world's annual supply of crude oil — a remarkable fact for a city-state of 6 million people on an island 50 km long, built entirely on geographic advantage, ruthless efficiency, and the elimination of corruption.

The Fall of Singapore — Churchill's greatest humiliation

The Fall of Singapore (15 February 1942 CE) — the British surrender of the supposedly impregnable fortress to the Japanese, with 80,000 soldiers taken prisoner — was the greatest military defeat in British history, destroyed the myth of British invincibility in Asia, and permanently undermined the moral authority of European colonialism throughout Southeast Asia.

Lee Kuan Yew — the man who built Singapore

Lee Kuan Yew's 31-year premiership (1959–1990 CE) transformed Singapore from a colonial backwater with no resources into one of the world's wealthiest nations — GDP per capita rose from $500 to $12,000 in a generation, making Singapore's development the most successful in human history and Lee the most studied statesman of the 20th century.

Singaporean independence — the reluctant nation

Singapore's independence on 9 August 1965 CE was not chosen but imposed — expelled from Malaysia by a government unwilling to share power with the Chinese-majority island, Lee Kuan Yew wept on television when announcing it, saying "For me, it is a moment of anguish because all my life I believed in merger and the unity of these two territories."

Singlish — the language that Singapore tried to abolish and failed

Singlish (Singapore Colloquial English), the creole language blending English with Hokkien, Malay, and Tamil, has survived every government campaign to eliminate it — a linguistic phenomenon that illustrates the limits of even Singapore's formidable state power, and whose survival is now celebrated as the most authentic expression of Singaporean identity.