Singapore hosted the 17th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting on 14 and 15 November 2009. The highlight was the presence at the meeting of US President Barack Obama in his first official visit to Asia. The meeting saw the United States ...
On 6 February 1819, Sir Stamford Raffles, Temenggong Abdu’r Rahman and Sultan Husain Shah (also spelt as Hussein Shah) of Johor signed a treaty that gave the British East India Company (EIC) the right to set up a trading post in Singapore. In exchange, Sultan Husain ...
On 2 April 1955, a general election was held to elect 25 out of 32 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Singapore. The landmark election was the first time a majority of legislators was elected by popular ballot rather than appointed by colonial authorities. The ...
Japanese forces invaded Malaya on 8 December 1941 and drove the British troops from the Malayan peninsula after just 70 days of fighting. By early February the following year, the Japanese were poised to strike their final blow on Singapore, the bastion of the ...
From 1959 up till the early 1960s, Singapore's then Ministry of Culture (now known as the Ministry of Communications and Information) organised a series of free, open-air cultural concerts with a strong multi-racial theme. Known as Aneka Ragam Ra'ayat, or “People's ...
The term “yellow culture” is a direct translation of the Chinese phrase huangse wenhua (黄色文化), which refers to what was perceived as degenerate behaviour, such as gambling, opium-smoking, pornography, prostitution, corruption and nepotism. The term originated from ...
The Asian financial crisis started in Thailand with the collapse of the Thai baht in July 1997. What began as a currency crisis soon affected the wider economy and spread quickly to the rest of the region, leading to economic downturns in several countries. Singapore ...
The opening of Singapore as a British free port in 1819 attracted trade from the Bugis, a group of seafarers from the southern Celebes (today’s Indonesian island of Sulawesi). Travelling on their distinctive boats known as prahus, they brought with them specialised ...
One of Singapore's biggest fires occurred in Bukit Ho Swee on 25 May 1961. The fire razed a 100-acre area (0.4 sq km) consisting of a school, shops, factories and wooden and attap houses, leaving some 16,000 kampong dwellers homeless and four fatalities. The property ...
On 29 January 1983, seven people died when the Sentosa cable cars they were aboard plunged into the sea after the derrick of an oil-drilling vessel, Eniwetok, struck the cableway when it was unberthing from the wharf nearby. It was the first fatal accident since ...
Chinese New Year celebrations are accompanied by specific rites and rituals with strict prohibitions and taboos.
A cholera epidemic occurred in Singapore in July 1873 and lasted till September the same year, resulting in 857 reported cases and 448 deaths. The 1873 outbreak was particularly deadly with a mortality rate of 41.5 percent. Port health controls on immigrants and ...
On 8 August 2011, local daily freesheet Today published a news feature that mentioned a dispute between a migrant family from China and a Singaporean Indian family over the smell of curry emanating from the latter’s home. Following the publication of the news article, ...
The "curry murder" was a high-profile murder case in 1984 that supposedly involved the perpetrators covering up the killing by chopping the victim Ayakanno Marimuthu's (given as Marithamuthu in some sources) body into pieces and cooking them in curry. In March ...
On 23 November 2007, a dragon boat carrying a 22-member team representing Singapore overturned in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap river after strong currents caused it to collide with a tugboat moored at a pontoon. Five members of the team were sucked under the pontoon by ...
There are no records of earthquakes occurring in Singapore, as the island is located outside earthquake zones. However, Singapore does periodically experience low-level earth tremors caused by earthquakes in Sumatra, Indonesia. Occasionally, these tremors may cause ...
Farrer Park is a sub-zone under the Rochor planning area. Historically, the name refers to the former racecourse (also known as Farrer Park Racecourse), which was built in 1843 as a sports and recreational hub for Europeans. After the racecourse moved to Bukit ...
A Chengal Pasir tree near Halton Road in Changi was felled by DTZ Debenham Tie Leung Property Management Services (DTZ) on 20 November 2002. The tree was believed to be the last of its species in Singapore. DTZ was found guilty of illegally felling the tree and ...
Surviving the Sky, Singapore’s and Asia’s first reality challenge in a cable car, took place from 16 to 23 March 2004. The event was held in conjunction with Singapore Cable Car’s (SCC) 30th anniversary. Participants had to endure living in a cable car for seven ...
The first air raid on Singapore was carried out by 17 Japanese planes from the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Force, launched from Japanese-occupied Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam. It took place shortly after 4 am on 8 December 1941, and left 61 ...
A Qantas-BOAC Constellation G-ALAM airliner named Able Mike crashed during its landing at the now-defunct Kallang Airport on 13 March 1954 at 3.04 pm. The plane was making a scheduled flight from Sydney to London and had stopped over at Darwin, Australia, and Jakarta, ...
Singapore’s first Crime Prevention Week was held from 15 to 21 March 1954. Organised by the Singapore Police Force, this first crime prevention week initiated a working partnership between the police force and the public in the task of fighting and preventing crime. ...
The Road Courtesy Campaign launched by then Deputy Prime Minister Toh Chin Chye on 10 September 1966 is the first national campaign to try and instil more awareness of road safety in all road users. It marked the start of a sustained effort in Singapore to bring ...
The first Singapore Grand Prix was held from 16 to 17 September 1961. It was one of a series of sporting events held in support of the government-sponsored “Visit Singapore – The Orient Year” tourism campaign. Organised by the Singapore Motor Club (SMC) with ...
The first vertical marathon in Singapore was held on 3 May 1987. A total of 130 men and 50 women took part in the race up 1,336 steps to reach the top of the world’s tallest hotel at the time: the 73-storey, 226-metre-tall Westin Stamford (now known as Swissôtel ...
In December 1972, a group of 10 men killed businessman Ngo Cheng Poh and his employees, Leong Chin Woo and Ang Boon Chai, over 120 gold bars. Known as the "Gold Bar Murders", the case was one of Singapore's most prominent criminal cases. The men responsible were ...
The sovereignty of Christmas Island was transferred from Singapore (then a Crown colony of the United Kingdom) to the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 October 1958 under the Transfer to Australia Order in Council, 1958. At the close of the day on 30 September, the ...
Singapore Airlines flight SQ 117 was hijacked on 26 March 1991 shortly after it took off from Kuala Lumpur. The hijackers were four passengers who claimed to be members of the Pakistan People’s Party. The plane landed at Changi Airport at 10.24 pm. Commandos ...
Huang Na, aged 8, went missing on 10 October 2004. Her disappearance resulted in a nationwide search. Her body was eventually discovered in a box dumped at Telok Blangah Hill Park. Took Leng How, a colleague of Huang Na's mother, was charged with her murder. He ...
John Martin, born John Martin Scripps, was the first Westerner hanged in Singapore for murder on 19 April 1996. He was convicted for the murder of South African tourist, Gerard George Lowe, in March 1995. The police were alerted when various parts of Lowe’s dismembered ...
The Keep Public Toilets Clean campaign series was launched by the Ministry of Environment (ENV) in July 1983. Held in the same month as the National Courtesy Campaign (NCC), the public education programme was started with the aim of promoting good public toilet ...
On 31 January 1974, four men armed with submachine guns and explosives attacked the Shell Oil Refinery on Pulau Bukom Besar, an island south of mainland Singapore. After they failed to blow up the oil tanks, the group – dubbed the “Bukom bombers” by the newspapers ...
The Lehman Brothers Minibond saga refers to the chain of events resulting from the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy filing in September 2008. Following the collapse of the Lehman Brothers, about 10,000 retail investors in Singapore lost all or a large part of their ...
The Lehman Brothers Minibond saga arose from the company’s bankruptcy filing in September 2008 and centred on the impact this had on several structured investment products linked to the failed investment bank. When investors discovered that the company’s collapse ...
The National Library Board’s first centralised Library Book Sale was held at the Suntec City Entertainment Centre in 1998 in conjunction with the Great Singapore Sale. Since then, the book sale has been taking place almost every year either at the Singapore Expo ...
A riot that lasted about two hours erupted in Little India on Sunday, 8 December 2013, following a fatal traffic accident that had occurred along Race Course Road. Some 300 rioters took part in the unrest, which was the worst case of public violence in Singapore ...
A bomb exploded in the MacDonald House building situated along Orchard Road on 10 March 1965 at 3.07 pm. The explosion claimed the lives of three people and injured at least 33 others. The bombing had been carried out as part of Indonesian’s Confrontation (also ...
Floods are a common occurrence in Singapore usually caused by a combination of heavy rainfall, high tides and drainage problems, especially in low-lying areas. Most floods in Singapore are flash floods that subside within a few hours. Although most floods cause ...
The Maria Hertogh riots were a severe outbreak of violence that took place in Singapore between 11 and 13 December 1950 over the custody lawsuit of Maria Hertogh. The riots left 18 dead and 173 injured, as well as a reported 72 vehicles burnt, 119 vehicles damaged, ...
Michael Peter Fay (b. 30 May 1975, St. Louis, Missouri, United States–), then an American teenager living in Singapore, stirred up a media storm after he was sentenced to six strokes of the cane in March 1994 for vandalising 18 cars over a ten-day period in September ...
Singapore hosted the 36th Miss Universe pageant on 27 May 1987. The extravaganza was staged in Hall 4 of the former World Trade Centre (now known as HarbourFront Centre), and televised worldwide to at least 600 million viewers in 56 countries. Organised at a cost ...
On 27 June 1964, 52 students were arrested in a massive pre-dawn crackdown at Nanyang University, on grounds of their involvement in "communist subversive activities". It was the last of a series of anti-communist actions conducted by the Federal government in ...
The Oriental Hotel murder was a crime that occurred on 6 June 1994 at Oriental Hotel Singapore, when Abdul Nasir Amer Hamsah and Abdul Rahman Arshad attacked and robbed two Japanese tourists, Fujii Isae and Takishita Miyoko. Both women sustained injuries during ...
The first-ever visit to Singapore by a Catholic pope was by John Paul II on 20 November 1986. During his brief stop in Singapore, Pope John Paul II met the Singapore president and prime minister, and conducted mass which was attended by about 70,000 people at the ...
When Princess Elizabeth was crowned Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (UK) and Head of the Commonwealth on 2 June 1953, Singapore celebrated the coronation along with other British colonies and the UK. Queen Elizabeth II ascended to the throne in 1952 when ...
Racial Harmony Day is an annual event held on 21 July to commemorate the communal riots of 1964 and teach students the importance of maintaining racial and religious harmony in Singapore’s multicultural and multi-ethnic society. It was launched in 1997 as part ...
The referendum on merger with the Federation of Malaysia, also known as the Singapore National Referendum, was held on 1 September 1962. The idea for a referendum to be held was championed by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of the People’s Action Party (PAP). ...
The Robinson’s Department Store building at Raffles Place was destroyed by a fire that broke out at around 9.55 am on 21 November 1972. The fire, which was one of the worst in Singapore’s history, also caused damage to the roof of the Overseas Union Bank next door ...
For about a week in early June 1990, Singaporeans were captivated by media reports of runaway elephants on Pulau Tekong. This was reportedly the first time in recent history that elephants had swum across the Johor Straits to Tekong, an island used by the Singapore ...
Singa the Courtesy Lion (also known as Singa the Lion or Singa) was introduced to the public in 1982 as the official mascot for Singapore’s National Courtesy Campaign (NCC). In his role as courtesy mascot, Singa has appeared in numerous publicity materials, souvenirs ...
The first Armed Forces Day was celebrated on 1 July 1969 with a grand parade and march-past at the Jalan Besar Stadium presided over by then Minister for the Interior and Defence Lim Kim San. Public outreach activities such as camp “open houses”, exhibitions, selling ...
The first Singapore Fashion Festival was launched on 16 March 2001. The annual two-week-long festival is supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) with the aim of making Singapore the fashion capital of Asia. Festival highlights include the showcase of international ...
The Singapore International Festival of Arts is an annual highlight of Singapore’s cultural calendar. It began as the Singapore Festival of Arts in 1977 and was a biennial event up till 1999. Started at a time when Singapore was often called a “cultural desert”, ...
The first Singapore River Buskers’ Festival was held along the Singapore River from 15 to 23 November 1997. Organised by The A Team Promotions in collaboration with the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (STPB), the festival was part of the three-month Celebration ...
The Singapore Turf Club, renowned for its horse racing events, is the oldest existing club in Singapore. It was founded by Scottish merchant William Henry Macleod Read, and began as the Singapore Sporting Club (SSC) on 4 October 1842. The SSC was renamed the ...
In 1966, Singapore celebrated its 9 August National Day for the first time. It was a week-long string of festivities that included a big parade, fireworks displays, cultural shows, and dinner parties. It was actually Singapore’s second National Day. The very first ...
It was the practice in British Commonwealth countries to conduct a census of population at the beginning of each decade. However, the onset of World War II in 1939 had meant the cancellation of the 1941 census in Malaya and Singapore. As part of the post-war reconstruction, ...
Singapore saw the successful delivery of its first surviving in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) quadruplets on 14 May 1989. A Mother's Day gift to Mr. and Mrs. H. T. Tan, the quadruplets – girls Chun Ping, Chun Li, Chun Di and their brother Min Bin had healthy birth ...
After six years of negotiations between Singapore and Malaysian officials over a new agreement on water and gas supplies, Singapore’s then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and his Malaysian counterpart, Mahathir Mohamad, finally signed a memorandum of understanding ...
Yip Pin Xiu was hailed as “Pin Xiu the golden girl” in newspaper headlines when the 16-year-old became the first Singapore athlete to win gold in the 50m backstroke during the 13th Paralympic Games in Beijing in September 2008. She finished in 58.75 seconds, a ...
Singapore’s women’s table tennis team comprising Li Jiawei, Feng Tianwei and Wang Yuegu fought a series of tough battles against the world’s best table tennis players to win Singapore its second Olympic medal in 48 years in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The trio won ...
On 26 November 2012, 171 bus drivers from public-transport service provider SMRT Corporation Limited (SMRT) refused to go to work, and 88 were absent from work the next day. It was the first strike in Singapore since the Hydril strike in 1986. The protestors, ...
The explosion and fire on board Greek oil tanker S. T. Spyros on 12 October 1978 was described as Singapore’s “worst post-war disaster in terms of lives lost”. Seventy-six people died and 69 others were injured in the accident.
Stamford Raffles landed in Singapore on 28 January 1819. Travelling on the Indiana with a squadron that included the schooner Enterprise, he anchored at St John’s Island at 4.00 pm on 28 January 1819 and met with Temenggong Abdul Rahman. The site on the Singapore ...
The Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors’ Award was first established in May 1986 to encourage and promote creativity and innovation in science and technology. The competition is open to Singaporeans and permanent residents aged 36 and below (Open Section) as well as students ...
Tea dances were a popular social event in Singapore from the 1920s to the 1960s where patrons socialised over music and drinks. In the 1960s, tea dances organised by clubs became the centre of the rock ’n’ roll culture in Singapore. Such tea dances eventually died ...
Launched by then prime minister Goh Chok Tong at the National Stadium on 3 October 1993, the Great Singapore Workout is a fitness routine that formed part of the month-long National Healthy Lifestyle Programme. The workout is a specially designed low-impact aerobic ...
The Orchard Towers double murder refers to the murders of Kho Nai Guan, aged 46, and his girlfriend Lan Ya Ming, aged 30, by Michael McCrea in 2002. The British financial adviser, with the help of three others, dumped the bodies in a car which was subsequently ...
The Sunny Ang murder case was one of the most high-profile crimes in 1960s Singapore. Sunny Ang Soo Suan (also known as Anthony Ang), a one-time Grand Prix driver, was accused of causing the death of his girlfriend, Jenny Cheok Cheng Kid, a former barmaid, so that ...
Theemithi (also spelt Thimithi), or "firewalking", is a Hindu religious practice where devotees walk across a fire pit in exchange for a wish or blessing granted by the goddess Draupadi. Theemithi is part of a larger ceremony stretching over a two-and-a-half month ...
The inaugural World Toilet Summit 2001 was held from 19–21 November 2001 at the Singapore Expo. Hosted by the Restrooms Association of Singapore, along with 16 other toilet associations, the purpose of the summit was to promote an in-depth discussion on global ...