MALACCA

Malacca stamps, available worldwide at Io Collezionista. The area where the sultanate of Malacca arose in 1402, and in the centuries that followed the state capital of the same name, was settled until the early 15th century by a few fishing communities. Its greatest period came during the reign of Muzaffar Shah, the fifth sovereign, in power from 1445 to 1459, who carried through an important military campaign to conquer the territories to the north and, in effect, to take absolute control of the strategic Strait of Malacca. The arrival of the Portuguese in 1511 ended the sultanate's supremacy, and it passed under various rulers, Dutch and British, before being reborn as an independent nation in 1956.