March 23, 2015

"Lee Kuan Yew will forever be remembered as the man who transformed a mosquito-ridden colonial trading post into a prosperous financial center with clean streets, shimmering skyscrapers and a stable government.

Born in 1923, Lee became Prime Minister in 1959 when Singapore, a tiny spit of land with no natural resources and a polyglot population of Chinese, Malays and Indians, was still British territory and beset by riots and unrest.

He presided over Singapore's bitter split from Malaysia in 1965 and molded the independent country into the global economic powerhouse it is today. "I was trying to create, in a third-world situation, a first-world oasis," Lee told CNN in 2008."

Read more:

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/22/asia/singapore-lee-kuan-yew-obit/index.html