Singapore
Stamford Raffles founded colonial Singapore in 1819 as a trading post of the British East India Company. After the company's collapse in 1858, the islands were ceded to the British Raj as a crown colony. During the Second World War, Singapore was occupied by Japan. It gained independence from the UK in 1963 by federating with other former British territories to form Malaysia, but separated two years later over ideological differences, becoming a sovereign nation in 1965. After early years of turbulence and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation developed rapidly as an Asian Tiger economy, based on external trade and its workforce.
Zubir Said
Singapore, then a British colony, had been conferred city status by a royal charter from King George VI in 1951. In 1958, the City Council of Singapore approached Zubir to compose a song for the city to be titled ""Majulah Singapura"", which was a motto to be displayed in the Victoria Theatre after its renovation. Zubir's song, ""Majulah Singapura"" ("Onward Singapore"), was first performed by the Singapore Chamber Ensemble during the grand finale of a concert staged in the Victoria Theatre on 6 September 1958 to celebrate its official reopening. When Singapore attained self-government in 1959, the Government felt that a national anthem was needed to unite the different races in Singapore. It decided that the City Council's song, which was already popular, would serve this purpose. After some revisions were made to the song, it was adopted by the Legislative Assembly on 11 November 1959, and on 30 November the Singapore State Arms and Flag and National Anthem Ordinance 1959 was passed. This statute regulated the use and display of the State Arms and State Flag and the performance of the National Anthem. ""Majulah Singapura"" was presented to the nation on 3 December at the launch of "Loyalty Week", replacing the colonial anthem "God Save the Queen". After Singapore's full independence from Malaysia on 9 August 1965, ""Majulah Singapura"" was formally adopted as the Republic's national anthem. In a 1984 oral history interview, to sum up his philosophy when composing the anthem, Zubir cited the Malay proverb ""Di mana bumi dipijak, di situ langit dijunjung"" ("You should hold up the sky of the land where you live").