...........................	History In Brief ......................................................................................................................... Early records of Singapore are vague, though it seems to have been a small seaport during the period when the mighty Sumatran Sri Vijaya Empire ruled the whole region. According to the 16th-century Sejarah Melayu, or 'Malay Annals', Temasek, as it was then known, was a flourishing trading post in the 14th century. However, a contemporary Chinese account describes it as a pirate island. It was briefly ruled by the Sumatran prince Parameswara, but invasions by the Thais and Javanese in the 1390s drove him to flee north to Melaka to found the Malay Sultanate there. Singa Pura remained undeveloped until the arrival of Thomas Stamford Raffles.     Gazing over the Singapore River up which he sailed in January 1819 stands this white marble statue of Thomas Stamford Raffles, the city's visionary founder.
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