The old racecourse (at what is today Farrer Park), or the Serangoon Road Race Course, was built in 1842. The racecourse became a sports and recreational hub for Europeans and created employment for early settlers from Java and India. It also witnessed significant ...
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 ...
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 ...
Singapore’s inaugural Formula One motor race was held at the Marina Bay street circuit from 26 to 28 September 2008. Called the Formula 1 SingTel Singapore Grand Prix, it was the first and only race to be held at night in F1’s history, and the first F1 street race ...
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 ...
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 ...
The Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) was launched on 29 April 2000 by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong to “encourage Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English that is universally understood”. The movement was introduced as a response to the growing ...
Richard Tay Tian Hoe (b. 195?, Singapore–) is the group managing director of YHI International Limited, a Singapore public-listed company that distributes automotive and industrial products. The company is also an original design manufacturer (ODM) for alloy wheels. ...
Ong Beng Seng (b. 1946, Teluk Anson, Malaysia) is a Malaysian hotel and property tycoon based in Singapore. Ong and his Singaporean wife, Christina Ong, were ranked seventh on Forbes magazine’s 2011 list of Singapore’s richest people with an estimated net worth ...
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 ...
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 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 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 international sports event ever held in Singapore was the 7th Southeast Asian Peninsular (SEAP) Games from 1 to 8 September 1973. There were 16 sporting events and a total of 1,623 athletes from seven countries who took part in the SEAP Games. Singapore ...
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 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 ...
National Loyalty Week was held between 3 and 10 December 1959 to encourage a sense of loyalty among the diverse citizens of the new state of Singapore. It saw the inauguration of key national symbols including the state flag, the national anthem, the state crest ...
On 12 March 1927, a clash in the Kreta Ayer neighbourhood between police and Kuomintang (KMT) supporters revealed the strength of leftist influence on the local Chinese population. A memorial service to mark Sun Yat Sen’s death was followed by a procession of Chinese, ...
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 ...
Singapore hosted the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG) from 14 to 26 August 2010. During the event, an estimated 3,600 athletes from 205 countries, aged between 14 and 18 years, competed in 26 various sports events. The Games involved some 20,000 local and international ...