1957Tunku Abdul Rahman proclaims the independence of Malaya
Britain had ruled the Malay states, Penang and Malacca in various forms since the late 18th century, and after the Second World War it faced both a communist insurgency in the jungle, the Malayan Emergency, and a growing demand for self-rule. The Alliance, a partnership of Malay, Chinese and Indian parties led by Tunku Abdul Rahman, swept the 1955 election, and early in 1956 the Tunku led a mission to London that won British agreement to full independence, with the date set for 31 August 1957.
On the morning of 31 August 1957, before more than 20,000 people at the newly built Merdeka Stadium in Kuala Lumpur, the Tunku read the proclamation of independence of the Federation of Malaya, then raised his arm and cried ‘Merdeka!’ (freedom) seven times, the crowd shouting it back to him. He became the country’s first prime minister. In 1963 Malaya joined with Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore to form Malaysia, and 31 August is still celebrated as the national day, Hari Merdeka.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: National Archives of Malaysia: Menjejaki 31 Ogos 1957 (Tracing 31 August 1957) ↗
1980Polish strikers win the right to a free trade union in Gdańsk
In the summer of 1980 sudden rises in food prices set off strikes across communist Poland. On 14 August workers at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk stopped work to demand the reinstatement of the crane operator Anna Walentynowicz and the electrician Lech Wałęsa, and within days an inter-factory strike committee led by Wałęsa was speaking for hundreds of workplaces along the Baltic coast. Its 21 demands, written on plywood boards and hung on the shipyard gate, began with the right to form free trade unions independent of the Communist Party.
After two weeks of talks broadcast to the shipyard over loudspeakers, the government gave way. On 31 August 1980 the deputy prime minister Mieczysław Jagielski and Wałęsa signed the Gdańsk Agreement, Wałęsa using a large souvenir pen bearing a picture of Pope John Paul II. It allowed the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc. Solidarity grew to about ten million members within a year; it was crushed under martial law in December 1981, but it survived underground and in 1989 negotiated the end of communist rule in Poland.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: European Solidarity Centre: How did Solidarność (Solidarity) come to be? ↗
1962Trinidad and Tobago becomes an independent nation
Trinidad was Spanish until the British seized it in 1797, and Tobago changed hands between European powers many times before both became British; they were joined as a single colony in 1889. Their people were descended from enslaved Africans, indentured labourers from India, Europeans, Chinese and others. In 1956 the historian Eric Williams founded the People’s National Movement and won the colony’s first elections under a new constitution, and when the short-lived West Indies Federation broke up in 1962 he chose to lead Trinidad and Tobago to independence on its own.
At midnight on 30 August 1962 the Union Flag was lowered and the new red, white and black flag raised, with bells and sirens ringing across Port of Spain, and on 31 August Trinidad and Tobago became an independent state within the Commonwealth. Williams became its first prime minister and Sir Solomon Hochoy its first governor-general. He led the country until his death in 1981; in 1976 it became a republic, and 31 August remains Independence Day.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: NALIS (National Library of Trinidad and Tobago): Independence Day ↗
1991Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union
The mountainous land of the Kyrgyz in Central Asia was taken by the Russian Empire in the 19th century and became a Soviet republic in 1936. In 1990, as the Soviet system weakened, the republic’s parliament chose a physicist, Askar Akayev, as its president instead of the Communist Party leader. When hardliners attempted a coup in Moscow in August 1991, local party bosses tried to unseat Akayev, but he held on and condemned the coup.
After the coup collapsed, Akayev left the Communist Party, and on 31 August 1991 the Supreme Soviet of Kyrgyzstan voted to declare the republic independent. In October Akayev, running unopposed, was elected president by popular vote, and when the Soviet Union was dissolved at the end of 1991 Kyrgyzstan became a fully sovereign state, joining the United Nations in 1992. 31 August is its Independence Day.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US Department of State: Background note, Kyrgyzstan ↗
