 Like every other settlement in the country, Apia village has its own "matai" chiefly leaders and "fa'alupega" (genealogy and customary greetings) according to fa'a Samoa.The modern capital Apia was founded in the 1850s and has been the official capital of Samoa since 1959.The harbour was also the site of an infamous 15 March 1889 naval standoff in which seven ships from Germany, the US, and Britain refused to leave harbour while a typhoon was clearly approaching, lest the first moved would lose face.