Malaya History Timeline & Facts

Concise Timeline, History and Facts about Malaysia
35,000 BC - 100 BC Ancient Malaysia - stone age tools and implements from about 10,000 BC have been found
The first ancestors were believed to be Negrito aborigines and a Chinese tribe called the Proto-Malays Chinese, Siamese, Arabs, Indonesians Proto-Malays and finally Indians formed the racial basis for the group which are now called the Malay Indian traders arrived in search of gold and spices and introduced Hinduism and Buddhism


In the 1400's and 1500's traders from Southeast Asia brought Islam
In 1511 the Portuguese arrived, led by Alfonso de Albuquerque, and it became a Portuguese colony
The Straits and port of Malacca was strategically important giving access to the spice trade
Captured by the Dutch in 1641
The Dutch government agreed to let England temporarily oversee the port and this was handed back in 1808
The Dutch passed control back to the British in a trade for Bencoleen, Sumatra
In 1819 Britain sent Sir William Raffles to establish a trading post in Singapore and the three British colonies of Penang, Malacca, and Singapore came to be known as the Straits Settlements
1914 - 1918 WW1
Britain ruled over, what was then called Malaya, until the Japanese invaded in 1942
August 1945 The United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
W.W.II ended in 1945 and Britain resumed control again
Independence was achieved for the Malayan peninsula in 1957 under the name of the Federation of Malaya
In 1961 the term "Malaysia" came into effect when Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak joined Malaya in a federal union
In 1965 Singapore opted out of the union.