History
A map dating from the Ming Dynasty shows the island. On this map is marked the village of Heung Kong Tsuen, lit. Hong Kong Village (香港村). It is probably where the name of Hong Kong originates from.
Ap Lei Chau shelters Aberdeen Harbour, creating an excellent typhoon shelter, and was a fishing village before the First Opium War. As a consequence of the Treaty of Nanking, it was ceded to the British together with Hong Kong Island in 1841. Since then, little attention had been placed on this small island.
In 1968, Hongkong Electric opened a power station on the island to provide electricity for the whole of Hong Kong Island. In 1980, a bridge was constructed to connect the island to the Hong Kong Island and brought momentum for rapid economic development. Public housing estates were built to accommodate people who suffered in a fire in the Aberdeen shelter.
In 1989, the power station was relocated to Lamma Island. The old power station was then demolished and the site was re-developed into the South Horizons residential area with the aid of land reclamation.
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“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)