~History~

"Trincomalee has one of the world's finest natural harbors and can accommodate the largest vessels - this fact led to Trincomalee being captured in turn by the Portuguese, Dutch, French and British from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Since the 1960s congestion and labor problems at the port of Colombo have forced the use of Trincomalee's port, little used commercially in previous years, for modest export trade. Many evidences of these colonial occupations are found Fort Ostenberg, Dutch gateway dated 1675 at Fort Frederick and Wellington House where the Iron Duke, then Colonel Wellesley, once lodged. Hindu shrine on the 400 ft. crag, Swami Rock; the Hindu Temple of a Thousand Columns, built by early Tamil settlers from S India, was destroyed (1622) by the Portuguese; on its site is Fort Frederick, built (1676) by the Dutch. Because control of Trincomalee was a key to domination over the Coromandel Coast of India, Britain and France sought (18th cent.) to wrest the city from the Dutch; it was captured (1795) by the British. During World War II, Trincomalee was the British naval headquarters in the Pacific theater and had an airfield from which U.S. planes operated against the Japanese in Myanmar and Malaya. A British naval base remained at Trincomalee until 1957, when Sri Lanka abrogated its defense agreement with Britain and took over the base." - Trinco Online