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Penang, Malaysia



 


Tree: Nederlandse voorouders

Notes:
Penang is a state in Malaysia, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. Penang is the second smallest state in Malaysia by area after Perlis, and the eighth most populous. A resident of Penang is colloquially known as a Penangite.



Name



The island of Penang was referred to as Bīnláng Yù (檳榔嶼, 槟榔屿) in the navigational drawings used by Admiral Zheng He of Ming-dynasty China in his 15th century expeditions to the South Seas. Fifteenth-century Portuguese sailors from Goa en route to the Spice Islands often made stopovers on the island which they called Pulo Pinaom. Early Malays called it Pulau Ka-Satu or "First Island", owing to the fact that it was the largest island encountered on the trading sea-route between Lingga and Kedah.



The name "Penang" comes from the modern Malay name Pulau Pinang, which means island of the areca nut palm (Areca catechu, family Palmae). The name Penang may refer either to the island of Penang (Pulau Pinang) or the state of Penang (Negeri Pulau Pinang). In Malay, Penang's capital George Town was called and labelled in old maps as Tanjung Penaga (Cape Penaigre), named after the many ballnut trees (also known as Alexandrian laurels, Calophyllum inophyllum) on the coast, but now usually shortened as Tanjung (the Cape).



Penang is often known as "The Pearl of the Orient", "东方花园" and Pulau Pinang Pulau Mutiara (Penang Island of Pearls). Penang is shortened as "PG" or "PP" in Malay.



History



Archaeological evidence shows that Penang (island and its mainland territory) was inhabited by the Semang-Pangan of the Juru and Yen lineage, both now considered extinct cultures. They were hunter-gatherers of the Negrito stock having short stature and dark complexion, and were dispersed by the Malays as far back as 900 years ago. The last recorded aboriginal settlement in Penang was in the 1920s in Kubang Semang.



The history of modern Penang, originally part of the Malay Sultanate of Kedah, began when the island was leased to Captain Francis Light, an English trader-adventurer working for the Madras-based firm, Jourdain Sullivan and de Souza, in exchange for military protection from Siamese and Burmese armies who were threatening Kedah. On 11 August 1786, Francis Light landed on Penang at what is later called Fort Cornwallis and renamed the island Prince of Wales Island in honour of the heir to the British throne. In Malaysian history, the occasion marked the beginning of more than a century of British involvement in Malaya.



Unbeknownst to Sultan Abdullah of Kedah, Light had acted without the approval of the company when he promised military protection. When Light reneged on his promise, the Sultan tried to recapture the island in 1790. The attempt was unsuccessful, and the Sultan was forced to cede the island to the company for an honorarium of 6,000 Spanish dollars per annum. Light established Penang as a free port to entice traders away from nearby Dutch trading posts. He also encouraged immigrants by promising them as much land as they could clear. He reportedly fired silver dollars from his ship's cannons deep into the jungle to expedite the process. Many early settlers, including Light himself, succumbed to malaria, earning early Penang the epithet "the white man's grave".



After Light's demise, Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Wellesley arrived in Penang to coordinate the defences of the island. In 1800, Lieutenant-Governor Sir George Leith secured a strip of land across the channel as a buffer against attacks and named it Province Wellesley (Seberang Prai). The annual payment to Sultan of Kedah was increased to 10,000 Spanish dollars per annum after the acquisition. Today, the Penang state government still pays RM 18,800.00 to the Sultan of Kedah annually.



In 1826, Penang, along with Malacca and Singapore, became part of the Straits Settlements under the British administration in India, moving to direct British colonial rule in 1867. For ten days in August 1867, Penang was gripped with civil unrest during what was known as the Penang Riot, pitting rival secret societies Kean Teik Tong (the Tua Pek Kong Hoey) and the Red Flag against the alliance of the Ghee Hin Kongsi and the White Flag, and which the British put down with sepoy reinforcement. During the First World War, in the Battle of Penang, the German cruiser SMS Emden sank two allied warships off the coasts of George Town.



Penang suffered devastating aerial bombardments during World War II and finally fell to invading Japanese forces on 17 December 1941 as the British withdrew to Singapore after declaring George Town an open city. Penang under Japanese occupation was marked by widespread fear, hunger, and massacres which targeted the local Chinese populace.



The British returned at the end of the war and in 1946 Penang was reorganized into the Malayan Union, before becoming in 1948 a state of the Federation of Malaya which gained independence in 1957, and subsequently became part of Malaysia in 1963. Wong Pow Nee of the MCA party was Penang's first Chief Minister.



The island was a free port until 1969. Despite the revocation of the island's free-port status, from the 1970s to the late 1990s the state under the administration of Chief Minister Lim Chong Eu built up one of the largest electronics manufacturing bases in Asia, the Free Trade Zone in Bayan Lepas located at the southeastern part of the island.



The Indian Ocean tsunami which struck on Boxing Day of 2004 hit the western and northern coasts of Penang island, claiming 52 lives (out of 68 in Malaysia).



On 7 July 2008, George Town, the historic capital of Penang, was formally inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, alongside Malacca. It is officially recognized as having "a unique architectural and cultural townscape without parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia".

State/Province : Latitude: 5.344086916174651, Longitude: 100.50155639648438


Birth

Matches 1 to 1 of 1

   Last Name, Given Name(s)    Birth    Person ID   Tree 
1 Neubronner, Catharina Louisa  Mon 06 May 1872Penang, Malaysia I427117 Nederlandse voorouders 

Death

Matches 1 to 2 of 2

   Last Name, Given Name(s)    Death    Person ID   Tree 
1 Muller, Franciscus Wilhelmus  Fri 07 Sep 1860Penang, Malaysia I546891 Nederlandse voorouders 
2 Neubronner, Alfred de Wind  Tue 26 Oct 1915Penang, Malaysia I427156 Nederlandse voorouders 

Marriage

Matches 1 to 2 of 2

   Family    Marriage    Family ID   Tree 
1 Bloemen / Broek  Sat 14 Jul 1917Penang, Malaysia F299067 Nederlandse voorouders 
2 Deterding / Neubronner  1894Penang, Malaysia F166510 Nederlandse voorouders 

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