The Mahavamsa relates that the island was conquered in 504 BC by Vijaya, a Hindu prince from northeast India. After subjugating the aboriginal inhabitants, a people now known as Veddas, Vijaya married a native princess, encouraged emigration from the mainland, and made himself ruler of the entire island. However, the realm (called Sinhala after Vijaya's patrimonial name) that was inherited by his successors consisted of the arid region lying to the north of the south-central mountain system.
Members of the dynasty founded by Vijaya reigned over Sinhala for several centuries. During this period, and particularly after the adoption in the 3rd century BC of Buddhism as the national religion, the Sinhalese created a highly developed civilization. Extant evidence of their engineering skill and architectural achievements includes remnants of vast irrigation projects, many ruined cities, notably the ancient capital Anuradhapura, and numerous ruined shrines called dasobas.

Foreign Control 
From the late 3rd century AD to the middle of the 12th century, Sinhala was dominated by Tamil kings and by a succession of invaders from southern India. Native princes regained power briefly in the late 12th century and again in the 13th century. From 1408 to 1438 Chinese forces occupied the island of Sinhala, which had been partitioned into a number of petty kingdoms.
In 1517 the Portuguese, having established friendly relations with one of the native monarchs, founded a fort and trading post at Colombo. Their sphere of influence expanded steadily thereafter, mainly as a result of successful wars of conquest, and by the end of the 16th century they controlled large sections of the island. Consequently, in 1638 and 1639, when the Dutch launched the first of a series of attacks on Portuguese strongholds in the island, they found numerous allies among the natives. The struggle ended in 1658 with the Dutch gaining control of most of the island, although the kingdom of Kandy remained an independent entity.

British Rule 
In 1795, following the occupation of the Netherlands by France, the British government dispatched an expeditionary force against Sri Lanka. The Dutch capitulated early in the next year, and in 1798 the British made all the island, except the kingdom of Kandy, a crown colony. By the provisions of the 1802 Treaty of Amiens, which terminated the second phase of the Napoleonic Wars, the country was formally ceded to Great Britain. The kingdom of Kandy was also occupied in 1803 and annexed to the crown colony in 1815. The British period of rule was marked by abortive native rebellions in 1817, 1843, and 1848. Tea and rubber estates were developed. In this period violent social-religious struggles between the Sinhalese peasants, mostly Buddhists, and the moneylenders and traders, chiefly Muslims, also occurred, and all the native peoples struggled continuously for representative government and national freedom. The first substantial victory in the struggle for self-government came after more than one century, when, in 1931, Great Britain promulgated a new constitution that granted the indigenous people semiautonomous control over national affairs.
During World War II (1939-1945) Sri Lanka was an important base of operations in the Allied offensive against the Japanese and a major source of rubber, foodstuffs, and other materials vital to the war effort.

Independence 
On February 4, 1948, the colony became an independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations; Sir Henry Moore was installed as governor-general and D. S. Senanayake, leader of the United National Party (UNP), became prime minister. An ancient Sinhalese flag was adopted as the flag of the new state, known then as Ceylon.
The foreign ministers of the Commonwealth of Nations assembled at Colombo in January 1950, and drafted a tentative plan for the economic development of Southeast Asia. As finally formulated, the Colombo Plan allocated nearly $340 million of Commonwealth funds for a variety of projects designed to advance the economy, notably irrigation works and hydroelectric plants.
When D. S. Senanayake died in 1952, his son, Dudley Senanayake, who belonged to the same party, was named prime minister. In 1954 Ceylon declined to join the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, which was formed as a defensive alliance by the United States, Great Britain, and six other nations. On December 14, 1955, Ceylon was admitted to membership in the United Nations.
The Bandaranaikes 
The UNP lost the elections held in April 1956, and Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike, leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, became prime minister. The country subsequently adopted a policy of neutrality in the disputes between the Communist and non-Communist countries. The United States agreed in early 1958 to provide the country with technical assistance and a grant of about $780,000 for economic projects. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Ceylon signed trade and economic agreements at about the same time. Shortly afterward the country accepted a loan of about $10.5 million from China.
On September 25, 1959, Prime Minister Bandaranaike was shot by a Buddhist monk and died the following day. In the general elections of March 19, 1960, the UNP won the greatest number of votes, and two days later Dudley Senanayake again became prime minister in a minority cabinet, which quickly lost parliamentary confidence. New general elections held on July 20 resulted in the victory of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party now led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike, widow of the late prime minister, and she was sworn in as prime minister the next day.
On December 31, 1960, a bill was passed making Sinhalese the only official language of the country. Representatives of the Tamil-speaking minority led mass demonstrations against the measure in early 1961. To cope with the situation, a state of emergency was declared, the Tamil Federal Party was forbidden to operate, and strikes were declared illegal. Sinhalese-Tamil relations continued to be strained until January 1966, when Tamil was made the official administrative language in the northern and eastern parts of the island.

The Republic 
With the nation in a period of economic decline, Dudley Senanayake was returned to power in the 1965 legislative elections. His policy of nonalignment, economic development, and increased domestic production did not satisfy the voters, as high unemployment, food shortages, and labor unrest continued. In 1970 a leftist coalition headed by Sirimavo Bandaranaike won the elections; the new government began to move the country toward socialism. In March 1971 a brief but violent armed revolt took place, sparked by leaders of the Marxist-oriented People's Liberation Front. By September, the Bandaranaike government had almost completely suppressed the rebellion. In that month the Senate was abolished and the House of Representatives was renamed the National Assembly. On May 22, 1972, the country, until then known as Ceylon, officially became the socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, when the assembly adopted a new constitution. Bandaranaike continued as prime minister, and William Gopallawa was appointed president.
In 1977 Bandaranaike's government was decisively defeated at the polls. She was replaced as prime minister by Junius R. Jayewardene, leader of the UNP. His government in 1978 replaced the 1972 constitution with one providing for an executive president, an office which Jayewardene then assumed. Reversing the socialist trend of his predecessor, he achieved some initial economic gains. By 1980, however, inflation and falling wages led to a general strike, which the government thwarted only by calling out troops. Later in the year Bandaranaike was expelled from the National Assembly and barred from voting or standing for election for seven years. The supreme court had previously found her to have abused her power during her years as prime minister. Jayewardene won reelection to a second six-year presidential term in October 1982. Subsequently, in December, a government proposal to extend the life of parliament until 1989 was approved by popular referendum.
In 1983 a civil war began between the Sinhalese-dominated government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE is a group that seeks to create a separate nation for the Tamil minority in the northern and eastern portions of Sri Lanka. In June 1987, after an agreement with Jayewardene, Indian troops moved into northern Sri Lanka to enforce a peace agreement between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. Warfare subsided, and Jayewardene retired in 1988; Ranasinghe Premadasa was elected to succeed him that year, defeating Bandaranaike. Premadasa's UNP retained its majority in the parliamentary elections of February 1989, and the last Indian troops departed in March. The period of relative peace was short-lived. In 1991 and 1992 several major battles were fought between the army and the LTTE, and in early 1993 the government was rocked by two assassinations. On April 23 Lalith Athulathmudali, who had founded the opposition Democratic United Liberation Front in 1991, was shot to death during a political rally. A week later, during the annual May Day parade, President Premadasa was assassinated by a suicide bomber who allegedly was a member of LTTE. Days later the Parliament unanimously elected UNP member Dingiri Banda Wijetunge, who was previously the prime minister, to serve as president until the next national election. In November 1993 LTTE forces managed to seize a government military base in Pooneryn, which is about 32 km (20 mi) southeast of Jaffna. Several days later government forces drove the rebel forces back and recovered the base. The fighting was some of the worst between the Sri Lankan government and rebel Tamil forces; the Sri Lankan government estimated that about 1200 people were missing or killed. Since fighting between the two groups began in 1983, about 40,000 people have been killed.
In parliamentary elections held in August 1994, the People's Alliance Party defeated the UNP, and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the daughter of former prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, became prime minister. In presidential elections held that November, Kumaratunga defeated the UNP's candidate, Srima Dissanayake, to become Sri Lanka's first female president. The UNP's original candidate, Gamini Dissanayake, had been killed during an election rally in October. As president, Kumaratunga appointed her mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, to serve as prime minister and pledged to open peace talks with the Tamil rebels. In January 1995 an agreement for a cease-fire between the LTTE and the government was reached, and both sides made efforts toward reconciliation by releasing political prisoners. However, the 14-week ceasefire, the longest since the onset of the war, ended in April, when rebels blew up two government gun boats. The fighting worsened as the Sri Lankan government took the offensive with the help of the Indian military. By the end of 1995 the government, after a two-month siege, recaptured the city of Jaffna which had been held by the LTTE since 1985. By 1996 the government regained control of the Jaffna Peninsula. In the meantime, President Kumaratunga devised a peace plan that would give limited autonomy to Sri Lanka's provinces- including Tamil areas. The federal government would retain control of defense, currency, and foreign affairs. To be enacted the plan must pass a two-thirds majority vote in the parliament and a national referendum. By May 1996 the plan had not yet been voted on, but the fighting between the government and the LTTE continued.
Another problem that has plagued President Kumaratunga's administration has been her continuance of Sri Lanka's privatization program. Recognizing this program as beneficial for Sri Lanka's economy, Kumaratunga continued privatization reforms even though she had once argued against them as part of the opposition in parliament. Trouble arose when in May 1996, in protest of scheduled privatization, Sri Lanka's power utility workers staged a strike, bringing a total power blackout to Sri Lanka and adversely affecting its economy.