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.
History of Singapore
Singapore, renamed Syonan-to (昭南島 "Shōnan-tō", "Bright Southern Island" in Japanese), was occupied by the Japanese from 1942 to 1945. The Japanese army imposed harsh measures against the local population, with troops, especially the "Kempeitai" or Japanese military police, particularly ruthless in dealing with the Chinese population. The most notable atrocity was the Sook Ching massacre of Chinese civilians, undertaken in retaliation against support of the war effort in China. The Japanese screened citizens (including children) to check if they were "anti-Japanese". If so, the "guilty" citizens would be sent away in a truck to be executed. These mass executions claimed between 25,000 and 50,000 lives in Malaya and Singapore. The rest of the population suffered severe hardship throughout the three and a half years of Japanese occupation. The Malay and Indians were forced to build the "Death Railway", a railway between Thailand and Burma (Myanmar). Most of them died while building the railway. The Eurasians were also caught as POWs (Prisoners of War).