Historical Tidbits Archives

April 22, 2026April 22, 2026

S is for Singapore

Fast Facts:

Named for: Siṃhapura, Sanskrit for “lion city”
Capital: It’s a “city-state,” i.e., Singapore is its own capital.
Long/Lat: 1.17 N/103.5 E, 17 hours and 8500 miles west of Castro Valley.
Population: 6.1 million or 100 Castro Valleys. Third most densely populated region in the world, after Macau and Monaco.
Size: 287 sq mi or 16 Castro Valleys
Avg temp in April: 90 F/30 C, close to the equator
Median income: $150,000, close to Castro Valley
Ethnicity: 74% Chinese, 14% Malay, 9% Industries
Main industries: Trade. Trade. Trade. Their economy is “free, innovative, dynamic, and business-friend.” Surprisingly, not especially corrupt.

One of the key architects of what Singapore has become was Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles. I know, the name sounds made up. That, too, is a metaphor for Singapore, a place of such contrast that it’s hard to believe.

Singapore is tiny, but huge in population. The 3rd most densely populated in the world, the 176th smallest land base for a country. It’s both island and city, near the sweltering jungles at the equator, but a futuristic high-tech sparkling megalopolis. It’s surrounded by Malaysia, also islands and cities, both rural and urban simultaneously. Singapore means “Lion City” though apparently there’s never been a lion, other than in a zoo. Its symbol is the Merlion, half-fish and half-lion. Perhaps Singapore’s success has been in taking on multiple identities.

Encyclopedias on Singapore begin its history with the 14th century, though surely there were people before that. The Malay people who predated the Kingdom of Singapore called it Pulau Ujong, meaning “island at the end of the peninsula.” But that’s a geographic description and not great for creating the image of a city-state. It was called Temasek, a trading port, a mix of Malay, Indian, South Asian, and Chinese people. Lion City seems a more intriguing name even if there never were lions. A Palembang prince in the 14th century reportedly spotted what he believed was a lion but it was really a tiger. Yet, he gets credit for suggesting its name, Siṃhapura.

April 20, 2026April 20, 2026

The Panama Canal: 500 Lives per Mile

The original Panama Canal still operates a century later. Kajmeister photo.

A grand vision. Incredible hubris. Stupidity and poor planning. Thousands of lives lost. A miracle of modern science and engineering. A doorway between oceans. The Panama Canal was–and is–all of these things.

Yesterday, I wrote my A to Z post about the country of Panama. But I mentioned the serendipity of being in Panama while it was time to write about Panama. And the first thing anyone usually thinks about Panama is The Canal.

Knowing I was planning this trip through the canal, Nan, one of my chickleball friends, recommended an excellent history of the canal: David McCullough’s The Pathway through the Seas. It earned a Pulitzer Prize 50 years ago, and for good reason. I had to speed-read the last of the 600 pages, just finishing it it in time–phew! otherwise, we would have been stuck in the locks. Spoiler: they did it. It was cray-cray. Herein, I will give you the speed version, 2000 words instead of 600 pages, the How, Why, and What the Canal was all about.

Before the Canal, there was a 50-mi (roughly) stretch of mountains and jungles. There was a railroad, but railroads can’t carry ships, and the Chagres River limited what ships could traverse it. Photo from mapsland.

April 14, 2026April 14, 2026

M is for Malta

Malta, the two tiny islands south of Sicily and west of Tunis. Graphic by Nuclear Vacuum.

What is it?
The stuff that dreams are made of…
Sam Spade, describing the Maltese falcon in “The Maltese Falcon”

Fast Facts

Named for: Greek meli (μέλη) for honeyed. There are native bees.
Capital: Valletta
Long/Lat: 35.5 N/14.3 E , 6700 mi East/11 hours East of CV. Nearly directly south of Liechtenstein.
Population: 520,000, or 9x Castro Valleys
Size: 122 sq mi, 8x CV. The population density and size of about 10 CVs.
Avg temp in April: 62 F/16 C (CV-like)
Median household income: $60,000, also high on a world standard
Ethnicity: 78% Maltese, meaning a mix of Italian, Spanish, Arab, French etc.
Main industries: Tourism, banking. In theory, limestone, but not too much.

Unlike Liechtenstein from yesterday, Malta is a tiny dot of great strategic importance. It’s in the Mediterranean, just south of Sicily and Italy but just East of Tunis and North Africa. Tunis was the springboard for the Phoenicians, who advanced sailing and the alphabet, but they were more traders than conquerors. The Romans took over in their turn, as did Hannibal and the Carthaginians. The Goths and Visigoths came through, followed by Islam sweeping across southern Europe and northern Africa. And that’s just the first half of their story of civilization.

Aleccio, Matteo Perez d’; The Siege of Malta: Attack on the Post of the Castilian Knights, 21 August 1565; National Maritime Museum.

It was a place of launching dreams of conquest or re-conquest. When the Crusaders made their move to “take back” land, they pushed from Europe south, establishing footholds in the Mediterranean from Venice and the Riviera to islands like Malta and Cyprus going down to Jerusalem. There were multiple waves of Crusades in the Middle Ages, and, at some point, a group of Benedictine monks built a hospital to minister to the wounded and sick Christian Crusaders. This was the Order of the Knights Hospitallers, affiliated with St. John. Their surcoat with the white cross against the red background is the inverse to the Knight’s Templar, but both captured the idea of a monastic order, beginning from ministering to the sick and needy, yet grounded in a military base.