Section Archive

Renzo Sawada, Japan’s ambassador to Japanese-occupied Myanmar, was so arrogant that then-Foreign Affairs Minister U Nu left his job to become information minister.

Though criticized for its harsh wording, the address by Myanmar’s independence hero on the reconstruction of Myanmar and public morality remains popular after all these years.

Colonel Suzuki Keiji was summoned back to Japan in 1942 amid fears that he was placing Myanmar’s independence struggle before Japan’s wartime interests.

On this day in 1960, John Sydenham Furnivall, a British educator and literary scholar whose career spanned colonial and independent Myanmar, passed away in England.

During his world tour, U Nu handed the US president with a cheque to mark the US sacrifice during World War II.

It took four years of independence before the government was granted the right to issue its own money.

U Naw was ostracized for abandoning Buddhism for Christianity and he died in obscurity but his baptism is still marked annually, 201 years later.

On this day in 1976, student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo became the only student in Myanmar’s history to be hanged after leading the 1974 anti-junta protests.

The rising influence of Mao Zedong among Yangon’s Chinese community was blamed for anti-Chinese attacks that led to the severing of diplomatic ties with China.

The British colonial authorities crushed a prison riot in Yangon (then Rangoon) in June 1930 as disturbances gripped the city.

On this day in 1911, a poor farmer who embodied rural people’s hopes of a better life and opposition to colonial rule was sentenced to hang by the British.

As a strong defender of imperialism, Sir Winston Churchill defused any potential tension with U Nu by saying they must bury old animosities.

On this day in 1832, Edwin Arnold, who wrote the poem, “The Light of Asia”, was born. His poetry introduced many westerners to Buddhist philosophy.

On this day in 1954, the current Yangon Central Railway Station opened after being rebuilt from the ashes of WWII.

Princess Hteik Su Myat Phaya Gyi was born into luxury in Mandalay but soon found herself exiled in India and forced to marry a servant.