The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the Balkans, dated to 270.000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona Cave,
in the northern Greek province of Macedonia. All three stages of the stone age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic)
are represented in Greece. Franchthi Cave is one of the better known examples of this era, as it was occupied during all three of
these phases. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries, as Greece
lies on the route via which farming spread from the Near East to Europe.
Greece is home to the first advanced civilizations in Europe and is considered the birthplace of Western civilization, beginning with
the Cycladic Civilization on the islands of the Aegean Sea at around 3200 BC, the Minoan Civilization in Crete (2700–1500 BC)
and then the Mycenaean Civilization on the mainland (1900–1100 BC). These civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in
an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Myceneans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Myceneans gradually
absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC, during a time of regional upheaval known as the Bronze Age collapse.
This ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent.
The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the year of the first Olympic Games. The Iliad and the Odyssey,
the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Hómeros in the 8th or 7th centuries BC.
With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, which spread to the shores of the
Black Sea, Southern Italy and Asia Minor. These states and their colonies reached great levels of prosperity that resulted in an
unprecedented cultural boom, that of Classical Greece, expressed in architecture, drama, science, mathematics and philosophy.
In 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens.
By 500 BC, the Persian Empire controlled territories ranging from their home of Iran all the way to what is now northern Greece,
Macedonia, southern Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania, and posed a threat to certain Greek states. Attempts by the Greek city-states of
Asia Minor to overthrow Persian rule failed, and Persia invaded the states of mainland Greece in 492 BC, but was forced to withdraw after
a defeat at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.
A second invasion by the Persians followed in 480 BC. Despite a heroic resistance at Thermopylae by Spartans and other Greeks led by
King Leonidas, Persian forces sacked Athens.
Following successive Greek victories in 480 and 479 BC at Salamis, Plataea and Mycale, the Persians were forced to withdraw for a second time.
The military conflicts, known as the Greco-Persian Wars, were led mostly by Athens and Sparta. The fact that Greece was not a unified
country meant that conflict between the Greek states was common.
The most devastating intra-Greek war in classical antiquity was the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), which was won by Sparta and marked
the demise of the Athenian Empire as the leading power in ancient Greece. Both Athens and Sparta were later overshadowed by
Thebes and eventually Macedon, with the latter uniting the Greek world in the League of Corinth under the guidance of
Phillip II, who was elected leader of the first unified Greek state in history.
Following the assassination of Phillip II, his son Alexander III ("The Great") assumed the leadership of the League of Corinth and
launched an invasion of the Persian Empire with the combined forces of all Greek states in 334 BC. Following Greek victories in the
battles of Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela, the Greeks marched on Susa and Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of Persia, in 330 BC.
The Empire created by Alexander the Great stretched from Greece in the west to Pakistan in the east, and Egypt in the south. Before his
sudden death in 323 BC, Alexander was also planning an invasion of Arabia. His death marked the collapse of the vast empire, which was
split into several kingdoms. Although the political unity of Alexander's empire could not be maintained, it brought about the dominance of
Hellenistic civilization and the Greek language in the territories conquered by Alexander for at least two centuries, and, in the case
of parts of the Eastern Mediterranean, considerably longer.
After a period of confusion following Alexander's death, the Antigonid dynasty, descended from one of Alexander's generals, established
its control over Macedon by 276 BC, as well as hegemony over most of the Greek city-states. From about 200 BC the Roman Republic became
increasingly involved in Greek affairs and engaged in a series of wars with Macedon. Macedon's defeat at the Battle of Pydna
in 168 BC signaled the end of Antigonid power in Greece. In 146 BC Macedonia was annexed as a province by Rome, and the rest of Greece became
a Roman protectorate. The Roman Empire in the east, following the fall of the Empire in the west in the 5th century, is conventionally
known as the Byzantine Empire and lasted until 1453. With its capital in Constantinople, its language and literary culture was Greek
and its religion was predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christian.
In the 14th century much of the Greek peninsula was lost by the Byzantine Empire at first to the Serbs and then to the Ottoman Empire.
While most of mainland Greece and the Aegean islands was under Ottoman control by the end of the 15th century, Cyprus and Crete remained
Venetian territory and did not fall to the Ottomans until 1571 and 1670 respectively. The only part of the Greek-speaking world that
escaped long-term Ottoman rule was the Ionian Islands, which remained Venetian until their capture by the First French Republic in 1797,
then passed to the United Kingdom in 1809 until their unification with Greece in 1864.
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution, was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries
between 1821 and 1828, with later assistance from Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and several other European powers against the
Ottoman Empire. As a result of years of negotiation, Greece was finally recognized as an independent nation in May 1832.
In 1924 the monarchy was abolished, and the Second Hellenic Republic was established.
The restored Kingdom of Greece lasted from 1935 to 1974. The Kingdom was again dissolved in the aftermath of the seven-year military
dictatorship, and the Third Republic, the current Greek government, came to be.