Singapore gained partial independence from the British in 1958, then became part of Malaysia (previously the Federation of Malaya) in 1963. Two years later it was kicked out of Malaysia because of racial tensions—the city-state was mainly ethnic Chinese, the peninsula dominated by Malays—and the antagonism of many senior politicians in Kuala Lumpur toward Lee, whom they considered headstrong and unpredictable. Lee was a month shy of his 42nd birthday, and no longer just Prime Minister of a federated state but of an independent nation with an evaporating economy and not a single trained soldier of its own to defend it.