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Whereas the 1980 and 1983 coup attempts against Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's presidency were not considered serious, the third coup attempt in November 1988 alarmed the international community. About eighty armed Tamil mercenaries landed on Malé before dawn aboard speedboats from a freighter. Disguised as visitors, a similar number had already infiltrated Malé earlier.

When the tsunami hit, two-thirds of the capital city Malé was flooded during the early hours of the day. Outlying low-level atolls were badly affected and some low lying islands, including some of the major resorts, were completely submerged during the high tide.

Three Utheemu brothers landed on different island every night, fought the Portuguese and set sail into the ocean before daybreak. They reached the capital island Malé on the night before the day fixed by the Portuguese garrison of Adiri Adiri for the forcible conversion of the inhabitants to Christianity, on the penalty of death for non-compliance.

The Maldive islands stretch from the southern tip of India down to the equator. There are 1,196 coral islands spread over roughly 90,000 square kilometers and 26 atolls of the Indian Ocean, making this one of the most disparate countries in the world.

Over the centuries, the islands have been visited and their development influenced by sailors from countries on the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean littorals. Mopla pirates from the Malabar Coast-present-day Kerala state in India-harassed the islands. In the 16th century, the Portuguese subjugated and ruled the islands for 15 years (1558-1573) before being driven away by the warrior-patriot and later Sultan, Muhammad Thakurufaanu Al-Azam.

This first elected president of the country introduced several reforms. While serving as prime minister during the 1940s, Muhammad Amin Didi nationalized the fish export industry. As president he is remembered as a reformer of the education system and a promoter of women's rights. Muslim conservatives in Malé eventually ousted his government, and during a riot over food shortages, Didi was beaten by a mob and died on a nearby island.

The importance of the Arabs as traders in the Indian Ocean by the twelfth century A.D. may partly explain why the last Buddhist king of Maldives converted to Islam in the year 1153. The king thereupon adopted the Muslim title and name of Sultan Muhammad al Adil, initiating a series of six dynasties consisting of eighty-four sultans and sultanas that lasted until 1932 when the sultanate became elective.

Muhammad Thakurufaanu, left the Maldive Islands with his brothers Ali and Hasan to Minicoy Island off the coast of India in the Laccadive Archipelago. The three Utheemu brothers built the greatest Maldivian ship ever crafted- the Kalhuoffummi and got Dandehelu to captain the ship.

Heyerdahl's research indicates that as early as 2,000 B.C. Maldives lay on the maritime trading routes of early Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Indus Valley civilizations. Heyerdahl believes that early sun-worshipping seafarers, called the Redin, first settled on the islands.

Even today, many mosques in Maldives face the sun and not Mecca, lending credence to the theory that early sun-worshipping seafarers first settled on the islands. Because building space and materials were scarce, successive cultures constructed their places of worship on the foundations of previous buildings. Heyerdahl thus surmises that these sun-facing mosques were built on the ancient foundations of the Redin culture temples

In 1960 Maldives allowed Britain to continue to use both the Gan and the Hitaddu facilities for a thirty-year period, with the payment of £750,000 over the period of 1960 to 1965 for the purpose of Maldives' economic development.

The Republic of Maldives is a country consisting territorially of a group of atolls in the Indian Ocean, south-southwest of India