People · c. 40,000 to 35,000 years ago
Veddas may be the island's first people.
Did you know that genetic studies suggest the ancestors of the Vedda were probably among the island's earliest inhabitants, arriving roughly 40,000 to 35,000 years ago, though a 2024 study linked them to some Indian peoples.
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Prehistory · c. 31000 BCE
A cave home 33,000 years old.
Did you know that Pahiyangala Cave, the largest natural stone cave in South Asia, was occupied from about 33,000 years ago, and its human remains link early islanders to the Late Pleistocene, long before any kingdom existed.
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Archaeology · c. 700 BCE
Burials older than the Vijaya legend.
Did you know that burial sites at Ibbankatuwa near Dambulla are about 2,700 years old, showing that people were organised enough to bury their dead in dedicated cemeteries before the traditional date of Prince Vijaya.
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Legend · traditional 543 BCE
Hands stained red gave the island a name.
Did you know that the Mahavamsa says Prince Vijaya named the island Tambapanni because his followers' hands were reddened by the local red soil when they landed, in the traditional year 543 BCE.
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Cities · c. 437 BCE
A capital that lasted 1,500 years.
Did you know that Anuradhapura is described as the longest serving Sinhalese capital, from about 437 BCE to 1017 CE, a span of roughly 1,500 years, though the article also gives 377 BCE for its formal establishment.
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Medicine · 3rd century BCE
A hospital possibly the world's oldest.
Did you know that Mihintale, near Anuradhapura, has a granite stairway of 1,840 steps and the ruins of a hospital that historian Heinz Muller Dietz called perhaps the oldest in the world.
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Religion · c. 247 BCE
Poson marks a mountaintop meeting.
Did you know that, according to the Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa, the monk Mahinda met King Devanampiyatissa at Mihintale on the full moon day of Poson, which is why Sri Lankan Buddhists still make Poson pilgrimages there.
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Nature · traditional 236 BCE
The oldest planted tree with a date.
Did you know that the Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura, a cutting brought by the nun Sangamitta, is described as the oldest living human planted tree with a known planting date, traditionally put at 236 BCE.
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Architecture · c. 140 BCE
A giant stupa left unfinished by its founder.
Did you know that King Dutugemunu began the great stupa Ruwanwelisaya around 140 BCE but died before it was finished, and that it is said to hold the largest collection of the Buddha's relics.
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Religion · 1st century BCE
Scriptures first written in Sri Lanka.
Did you know that the Pali Tripitaka was written down in the reign of King Valagamba, in the 1st century BCE, and that the Dambulla caves are traditionally linked to the same king.
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Art · 1st century BCE onward
153 Buddhas in five caves.
Did you know that the Dambulla cave temple holds 153 Buddha statues, three statues of Sri Lankan kings and four of gods and goddesses, with murals covering about 2,100 square metres.
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Rulers · c. 47 BCE
A queen recorded by a moralising chronicle.
Did you know that Queen Anula, who reigned in the 1st century BCE, is described in Wikipedia as the first queen regnant in Sri Lankan history, although her story comes mainly from the Mahavamsa's strongly moral account.
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Religion · 4th century CE
A relic brought across from Kalinga.
Did you know that, according to legend, Princess Hemamali and Prince Dantha brought the Tooth Relic from Kalinga to Sri Lanka during the reign of Sirimeghavanna, who ruled from 301 to 328.
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Engineering · c. 386 CE
An ancient tank inside a later giant.
Did you know that the northernmost section of the Parakrama Samudra reservoir, Topa wewa, dates to around 386 CE, showing that Polonnaruwa's famous water works build on far older Sri Lankan tank engineering.
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Architecture · 477 CE
A lion rock fortress in the sky.
Did you know that King Kashyapa, who reigned from 477 to 495 CE, built his fortress capital on Sigiriya, a granite column rising about 180 metres, whose name means Lion Rock.
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Literature · 5th or 6th century CE
A history written as an epic poem.
Did you know that the Pali chronicle Mahavamsa was composed by a monk named Mahanama in the 5th or 6th century CE, as an epic poem in verse about the island's history.
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Literature · 8th to 10th century CE
Ancient graffiti, now studied as poetry.
Did you know that the Sigiriya mirror wall carries visitors' poems, and that the scholar Senarath Paranavithana deciphered 685 verses written there between the 8th and 10th centuries.
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Military · 993 CE
Anuradhapura fell to the Cholas.
Did you know that the Chola king Rajaraja I invaded around 993 CE and took the north, and that in 1017 Rajendra Chola I's forces captured King Mahinda V and destroyed Anuradhapura.
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Engineering · 1153
Rain was never meant to reach the sea.
Did you know that Parakramabahu I, who ruled Polonnaruwa from 1153 to 1186, is credited with the saying that not even a drop of rain water should flow into the ocean without being made useful to man.
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Engineering · 12th century
A reservoir named for an ocean.
Did you know that the Parakrama Samudra is a shallow system of five connected tanks with a surface area of about 22.6 square kilometres, so large that its name calls it a sea.
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Travel · 1344
Iron chains up a sacred peak.
Did you know that traveller Ibn Battuta climbed Adam's Peak in 1344 and described a stairway and iron chains that helped pilgrims reach the summit.
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Archaeology · 1409
A treasure used as a drain cover.
Did you know that a trilingual stone in Chinese, Tamil and Persian, dated 1409 and linked to the admiral Zheng He, was found in Galle in 1911 serving as a culvert cover.
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Cities · 1412
A capital with two capitals.
Did you know that the Kingdom of Kotte lasted from 1412 to 1592, and that Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is still Sri Lanka's legislative capital while Colombo is the executive and judicial capital.
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Cities · 1469
A hill city older than its kingdom.
Did you know that the city of Kandy, then called Senkadagalapura, was founded in 1469, centuries before it became the capital of the last independent kingdom on the island.
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Language · 1505
How Ceilao became Ceylon.
Did you know that the Portuguese name Ceilao, recorded in 1505, was turned into English as Ceylon, the name used for the island for centuries before the formal change to Sri Lanka.
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Military · 1562
A victory that made a lion king.
Did you know that Tikiri Banda won the Battle of Mulleriyawa in 1562 against a Portuguese and Lascarin force, earning the title Rajasinha, meaning King of the Lions.
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Colonial · 1580
A king's will gave a colony its claim.
Did you know that Dharmapala of Kotte bequeathed his kingdom to the Portuguese monarch in 1580, which gave Portugal its claim to rule after his death on 27 May 1597.
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Rulers · 1582
A conqueror who changed his faith.
Did you know that Rajasinha I of Sitawaka conquered Kandy in 1582, and that Wikipedia states he converted to Hinduism between 1583 and 1587 after accusing Buddhist clergy of collaborating with his enemies.
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Architecture · 1588
A fort with two start dates.
Did you know that Galle Fort was begun by the Portuguese in 1588, though the infobox of the Wikipedia article gives 1584, and was later extensively rebuilt by the Dutch.
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Religion · 1603
The relic that always moved out of danger.
Did you know that when the Portuguese invaded Kandy in 1603, the Tooth Relic was carried away to Meda Mahanuwara in Dumbara for safekeeping.
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Economy · 1638
A cinnamon trade handed over in 20 years.
Did you know that Dutch traders set up a post in Sri Lanka in 1638, took control of the cinnamon manufactories by 1640 and expelled the Portuguese by 1658.
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Colonial · 13 March 1640
Galle first, Colombo second.
Did you know that the Dutch captured Galle on 13 March 1640 and used it as the centre of their power until Colombo became the capital in 1658.
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Colonial · 1658
A capital with a mountain that said no.
Did you know that the Dutch governorate in Colombo served as capital from 1658 to 1796, yet the Dutch, as Wikipedia puts it, were never able to control the Kingdom of Kandy.
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Language · Dutch period
Words that crossed the sea.
Did you know that Dutch rule left about 230 loanwords in Sinhala and about 50 in Tamil, mostly in warfare, trade and agriculture.
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People · Dutch period
Dutch surnames still live in Colombo.
Did you know that the Burghers, Sri Lankans of mixed Dutch and local descent who often carry Dutch surnames, are a living legacy of Dutch Ceylon, though many later migrated to Australia.
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Architecture · 1729
Fourteen bastions face the sea.
Did you know that the Dutch sea wall around Galle was completed in 1729, and that the fort has 14 bastions encircling the peninsula.
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Rulers · 1739
A Hindu dynasty that guarded Buddhism.
Did you know that the Nayak kings, who took the Kandyan throne in 1739, were of Telugu origin and Shaivite Hindus, yet patronised Theravada Buddhism and used Tamil as a court language.
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Language · 28 January 1754
An English word from a Sri Lankan name.
Did you know that Horace Walpole coined the word serendipity on 28 January 1754, taking it from the tale of the Three Princes of Serendip, where Serendip is an old Persian name for Sri Lanka.
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Architecture · 1752 to 1755
A church that survived the centuries.
Did you know that the Dutch Reformed Church in Galle Fort, begun in 1640, was remodelled between 1752 and 1755 and still stands as a landmark of Dutch Ceylon.
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Colonial · 1796
From coast to mountains in 19 years.
Did you know that the British occupied the coastal areas in 1796 and annexed Kandy by 1815, ending the island's independence as an entire native monarchy.
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Diplomacy · 2 March 1815
A convention that protected Buddhism.
Did you know that the Kandyan Convention was signed on 2 March 1815 and promised protection for Buddhism, while the last king, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, was captured in February 1815 and died in India in 1832.
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Conflict · 1817 to 1818
A rebellion put down with fire.
Did you know that Wikipedia describes the Uva Rebellion, which began in 1817, as a Kandyan uprising suppressed with scorched earth tactics, with more than 10,000 Sinhalese reported killed.
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Economy · 1867
A crop that renamed a country's image.
Did you know that Ceylon tea is dated in Wikipedia's infobox to 1867, and that the island became the world's third largest tea exporter, in 2019, as well as the fourth largest producer.
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Economy · 1860s to 1870s
A fungus changed a whole economy.
Did you know that coffee, once the main plantation crop, was wiped out by coffee rust, pushing planters to shift to tea and rubber and to bring Tamil indentured labourers from South India.
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Literature · 1912
A chronicle that reached Europe.
Did you know that the German translation of the Mahavamsa by Wilhelm Geiger appeared in 1912, followed by an English version by Mabel Haynes Bode, which Geiger revised.
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Media · 16 December 1925
A radio station older than most nations.
Did you know that Colombo Radio began broadcasting on 16 December 1925 from Welikada, and Wikipedia calls it the world's second oldest radio station, before it became Radio Ceylon.
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Politics · 1931
Women voted decades before many peers.
Did you know that the Donoughmore Constitution gave universal suffrage in 1931, including the vote for women aged 21, when British women were still campaigning to lower their voting age from 28.
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Education · 1938
Free schooling, with a date dispute.
Did you know that Wikipedia's article on education in Sri Lanka dates the system's formal move to free education to 1938, led by minister C. W. W. Kannangara, though a date of 1945 is often quoted elsewhere.
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Warfare · 5 April 1942
Colombo in the front line.
Did you know that on 5 April 1942 the Japanese Navy bombed Colombo, and that the city also served as Lord Mountbatten's Eastern Theatre headquarters during the Second World War.
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Politics · 4 February 1948
Independence came by constitutional route.
Did you know that Sri Lanka became independent on 4 February 1948 as the Dominion of Ceylon, with D. S. Senanayake as its first prime minister.
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Diplomacy · January 1950
An aid plan named for Colombo.
Did you know that the Colombo Plan grew out of a January 1950 Commonwealth meeting in Colombo, and that its organisation is still headquartered in the city today.
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Media · early 1950s
A banned sound found a home.
Did you know that Radio Ceylon's Hindi service drew a large audience in India in the early 1950s, partly because Indian stations had banned film music at the time.
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Science · 1956
A science fiction legend chose Ceylon.
Did you know that Arthur C. Clarke moved to Ceylon in 1956 to pursue scuba diving and lived there until his death in 2008.
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Politics · 21 July 1960
The world's first woman prime minister.
Did you know that Sirimavo Bandaranaike, sworn in on 21 July 1960, became the world's first female prime minister after her party won a landslide, following the 1959 killing of her husband.
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Archaeology · 1961
Silver coins under the sea.
Did you know that in 1961 Mike Wilson found a wreck off Great Basses Reef and retrieved silver coins, and Arthur C. Clarke watched the later salvage from the shore and surface.
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Politics · 22 May 1972
Ceylon became Sri Lanka in 1972.
Did you know that on 22 May 1972 the country became a republic with the formal name Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka, and was renamed the Democratic Socialist Republic in 1978.
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Diplomacy · 1976 to 1977
A woman who led the non aligned world.
Did you know that Sirimavo Bandaranaike chaired the Non Aligned Movement from 1976 to 1977, making her its first female leader.
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Sport · 17 February 1982
A Test debut in Colombo.
Did you know that Sri Lanka played its first Test cricket match on 17 February 1982 against England in Colombo, after being awarded Test status in 1981.
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Heritage · 1982
Three heritage sites in one year.
Did you know that Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Sigiriya were all inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1982, the first of the island's eight sites.
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Conflict · 23 July 1983
A ceasefire that did not last.
Did you know that the Sri Lankan Civil War began on 23 July 1983 and ended in May 2009, and that a 2002 ceasefire mediated by Norway was monitored by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.
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Heritage · 1988
Europe and South Asia in stone.
Did you know that Galle Fort covers about 52 hectares and was inscribed by UNESCO in 1988 as an urban ensemble showing the interaction of European architecture and South Asian traditions.
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Nature · 1988
A rainforest rich in endemics.
Did you know that Sinharaja Forest Reserve, a UNESCO site since 1988, is described as the last virgin rainforest in Sri Lanka, with over 60 percent of its trees endemic and 19 of the country's 20 endemic birds.
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Sport · 28 August 1992
A debut that led to 800 wickets.
Did you know that Muttiah Muralitharan made his Test debut against Australia on 28 August 1992 and went on to take 800 Test wickets, the most of any bowler.
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Politics · 12 November 1994
A president born into two prime ministers' family.
Did you know that Chandrika Kumaratunga, elected in 1994, was described as the first female president of Sri Lanka, as the daughter of two former prime ministers, Solomon and Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
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Sport · 17 March 1996
The first host nation to win.
Did you know that Sri Lanka won the 1996 Cricket World Cup by beating Australia by seven wickets in Lahore on 17 March 1996, becoming the first host or co host to win the tournament.
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Science · 26 May 2000
A knighthood held in Colombo.
Did you know that Sir Arthur C. Clarke's knighthood, announced in the 1998 New Year Honours at his request, was delayed and took place in Colombo on 26 May 2000.
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People · 2001
A small community under pressure.
Did you know that estimates from 2001 put the Vedda population at roughly 2,500 to 6,600, and that irrigation projects, forest restrictions and the civil war have disrupted their traditional way of life.
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Disaster · 26 December 2004
A morning wave across the coast.
Did you know that on 26 December 2004 the Indian Ocean tsunami killed about 35,000 people in Sri Lanka, according to a table in Wikipedia, and displaced 516,150 more.
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Conflict · 1983 to 2009
Counts of the dead remain disputed.
Did you know that casualty figures for the civil war remain disputed, with estimates by different sources ranging from about 70,000 to 100,000 or more, and a 2011 UN panel saying as many as 40,000 civilians may have died in the final phase.
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Sport · July 2010
A last ball, an 800th wicket.
Did you know that in July 2010 Muttiah Muralitharan took his 800th Test wicket with the last ball of his last Test, a record total that no other bowler has yet surpassed.
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Sport · 2014
A T20 title in 2014.
Did you know that Sri Lanka won the ICC World Twenty20 in 2014 by beating India by six wickets, adding a global Twenty20 title to its 1996 World Cup win in the one day format.
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Economy · 2016
A lion that guarantees tea.
Did you know that Sri Lanka's Lion Logo for pure Ceylon tea was registered in 98 countries as of 2016, and the Sri Lanka Tea Board sponsors the national cricket teams since 2013.
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Architecture · 2019
Over 2,000 years of rebuilding.
Did you know that the Ruwanwelisaya now stands about 103 metres tall, while the original structure was about 55 metres, and that its final crowning was completed only in 2019.
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Politics · 9 July 2022
A palace opened to the public.
Did you know that protesters entered the President's House in Colombo on 9 July 2022, and Parliament elected Ranil Wickremesinghe as president on 20 July 2022.
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Sport · 11 September 2022
A sixth Asia Cup title.
Did you know that Sri Lanka won the 2022 Asia Cup, defeating Pakistan in the final on 11 September 2022, for its sixth title.
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Economy · 2023
True cinnamon is rarer than you think.
Did you know that Sri Lanka produced 22,410 tonnes of cinnamon in 2023, about 9 percent of the world total of 238,403 tonnes, in a market dominated by cassia from China, Vietnam and Indonesia.
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Education · 2024
A strong literacy record.
Did you know that adult literacy in Sri Lanka was reported at 93.3 percent in 2024, with male literacy at 94 percent and female at 92.6 percent.
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Historiography ·
A chronicle still debated today.
Did you know that scholars have noted the Mahavamsa's focus on Sinhala Buddhist kings, and that some link its use to Sinhalese nationalism, a point that remains politically contested in Sri Lanka today.
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Nature ·
A biodiversity champion.
Did you know that Sri Lanka has the highest biodiversity per unit area among Asian countries for flowering plants and all vertebrate groups except birds, according to Wikipedia.
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Religion ·
One footprint, many faiths.
Did you know that Sri Pada, the 2,243 metre mountain also called Adam's Peak, has a hollow footprint credited by Buddhists to the Buddha, by Hindus to Shiva, and by some Muslims and Christians to Adam or St Thomas.
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Religion ·
A shadow shaped like a triangle.
Did you know that pilgrims climb Adam's Peak mostly from December to May to reach the summit by sunrise, when the mountain's shadow falls across the plain as a triangle.
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Economy ·
A city named for its gems.
Did you know that Ratnapura means city of gems in Sanskrit, mines there are often 10 to 50 metres deep, and the city is a starting point for the harder route up Adam's Peak.
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Food ·
The true cinnamon of the island.
Did you know that Ceylon cinnamon, Cinnamomum verum, uses only the thin inner bark, giving a lighter and more subtle flavour than cassia, and contains far less coumarin.
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People ·
Spirits of the ancestors guide them.
Did you know that Veddas were originally hunter gatherers using bows, arrows and harpoons, and that their original religion centres on venerating ancestral spirits called nae yaku.
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Nature ·
Most males carry no tusks.
Did you know that the Sri Lankan elephant, Elephas maximus maximus, has tusks in only about 7 percent of males and adults can weigh from 2,000 to 5,500 kilograms.
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Nature ·
The great elephant gathering.
Did you know that in the late dry season elephants gather around the Minneriya Tank in an event known as The Gathering, usually between August and October.
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Festival ·
Two ancient processions in one.
Did you know that the Kandy Esala Perahera blends two processions, an Esala one thought to date to the 3rd century BCE and a Dalada one said to begin after the Tooth Relic arrived in the 4th century CE.
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