A place

Malacca

2 stories from this place.

The Cabinet July 25, 2026 · Longjiang shipyards, Nanjing

The Treasure Fleets of Zheng He, Which Sailed to Africa and Back — and Were Then Deliberately Forgotten

Between 1405 and 1433 the Ming admiral Zheng He led seven expeditions of up to 300 ships and 27,000 men across the Indian Ocean — to India, Arabia, and the Swahili coast, returning once with a giraffe for the emperor. Then China turned inward: the voyages stopped, and the records were left to rot or worse. Europe's small ships entered an ocean the treasure fleets had vacated.

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The Footnote June 24, 2026 · Singapore

The Scottish Officer Who Actually Ran Singapore for Its First Five Years While Raffles Was Somewhere Else

[Stamford Raffles](/articles/stamford-raffles-singapore) signed the founding treaty for Singapore on 6 February 1819 and then sailed away. William Farquhar — a 49-year-old Scottish officer who had spent 24 years in the East India Company — was left in charge as the first Resident. He ran the colony for five years and was written out of its founding myth.

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