Pumanaw na ang kilalang historian at academician na si Dr. Samuel Kong Tan nitong Enero 6, 2021 sa edad na 88.
Si Dr. Tan ay dating chair ng University of Philippines Departamento ng Kasaysayan at National Historical Commission of the Philippines.
Iniwan niya ang legasiya ng mga scholarly works, aklat at panulat na tumatalakay sa Kasaysayan ng bansa lalo na ang Muslim South.
Ipinanganak si Dr. Tan sa Siasi, Sulu taong 1933 at may dugong Chinese-Tausug-Sama at nagtapos ng AB History sa Zamboanga A. E. College taong 1963 habang natapos naman niya ang MA in History sa UP taong 1967.
Nagturo is Dr. Tan sa UP Departmento ng Kasaysayan mula 1963 hanggang 1994, naging Department Chair ito mula taong 1977 hanggang 1982.
Taong 1994 naman nang maging Director and Convernor ito ng Mindanao Studies Program of UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies hanggang 2002.
Nakapagsulat din ito ng higit 20 na aklat kabilang ang The Muslim Armed Struggle in the Philippines,1900-1941 (1973); A History of the Philippines (1987) at The Muslim South and Beyond.
“Tan’s writing long nurtured not only a spatial perspective and cultural sensibility, reflective of his famillial roots deeply sown in Siasi, but also pioneered and sustained a new way of seeing and sensing the Muslim South as an integral part of national narrative in modern Philippine History,” pahayag ni Philippine National Historical Society. DZUP