Greece
Historie
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.
From the 4th century the Empire's Balkan territories, including Greece, suffered from the dislocation of barbarian invasions. The raids and
devastation of the Goths and Huns in the 4th and 5th centuries and the Slavic invasion of Greece in the 7th century resulted
in a dramatic collapse in imperial authority in the Greek peninsula. The Byzantine recovery of lost provinces during the Arab–Byzantine wars
(629–1050) began toward the end of the 8th century and most of the Greek peninsula came under imperial control again, in stages, during
the 9th century.
Following the Fourth Crusade and the fall of Constantinople to the "Latins" in 1204, mainland Greece was split between the
Greek Despotate of Epirus (a Byzantine successor state) and French rule (known as the "Frankokratia"), while some islands
came under Venetian rule. The re-establishment of the Byzantine imperial capital in Constantinople in 1261 was accompanied by the
empire's recovery of much of the Greek peninsula, although the Frankish Principality of Achaea in the Peloponnese and the rival
Greek Despotate of Epirus in the north both remained important regional powers into the 14th century, while the islands remained largely
under Genoese and Venetian control.
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.
Prior to the Greek Revolution of 1821, there had been a number of wars which saw Greeks fight against the Ottomans, such as the Greek participation
in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the Epirus peasants' revolts of 1600–1601 (led by the Orthodox bishop Dionysios Skylosophos),
the Morean War of 1684–1699, and the Russian-instigated Orlov Revolt in 1770, which aimed at breaking up the Ottoman Empire in
favour of Russian interests. These uprisings were put down by the Ottomans with great bloodshed.
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, with the Bavarian Prince
Otto von Wittelsbach as monarch. Otto was deposed in the 23 October 1862 Revolution. Multiple causes led to his deposition
and exile, including the Bavarian-dominated government, heavy taxation, and a failed attempt to annex Crete from the Ottoman Empire. A year later,
he was replaced by Prince Wilhelm (William) of Denmark, who took the name George I and brought with him the Ionian Islands as a
coronation gift from Britain.
After winning two elections and becoming Prime Minister in 1910, Eleftherios Venizelos initiated wide-ranging fiscal, social and
constitutional reforms, reorganised the military, made Greece a member of the Balkan League, and led the country through the Balkan
Wars (1912-1913). By 1913, Greece's territory and population had almost doubled, annexing Crete, Epirus, and Macedonia. In the following
years, the struggle between King Constantine I and charismatic Venizelos over the country's foreign policy on the eve of First World
War dominated the country's political scene and divided the country into two opposing groups.
During parts of WW1, Greece had two governments: A royalist pro-German one in Athens and a Venizelist pro-Entente one in
Thessaloniki. The two governments were united in 1917, when Greece officially entered the war on the side of the Entente.
In the aftermath of World War I, Greece attempted further expansion into Asia Minor, a region with a large native Greek population at the time,
but was defeated in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922. The war was concluded by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), according to
which there was to be a population exchange between Greece and Turkey on the basis of religion.
The Second Hellenic Republic was proclaimed in 1924 only to be disestablished in 1935 with the return of King George II of
Greece. In August 1936, Prime Minister Metaxas, with the agreement of the king, suspended the parliament and established the quasi-fascist
Metaxas regime.
On 28 October 1940, Fascist Italy demanded the surrender of Greece, but the Greek administration refused, and, in the following
Greco-Italian War, Greece repelled Italian forces into Albania, giving the Allies their first victory over Axis forces on land.
Primarily to secure his strategic southern flank, German dictator Adolf Hitler reluctantly stepped in and launched the Battle of
Greece in April 1941. Axis units from Germany, Bulgaria, and Italy successfully invaded Greece, through Yugoslavia, forcing out the
Greek defenders. Following liberation and the Allied victory over the Axis, Greece annexed the Dodecanese Islands from Italy and
regained Western Thrace from Bulgaria.
The Greek Civil War was the first major confrontation of the Cold War. It was fought between 1944 and 1949 in Greece between
the nationalist/non-Marxist forces of Greece (financially supported by the United Kingdom at first, and later by the United States)
and the Democratic Army of Greece, which was the military branch of the Communist Party of Greece. The war ended with the NATO
bombing of Mount Grammos and the final defeat of the comunist forces. As a result, Greece also entered into an alliance with the
United States and joined NATO, while relationships with its communist northern neighbours, both pro-Soviet and neutral, became strained.
In 1967, the Greek military seized power in a coup d'état, overthrowing the centre right government of Panagiotis Kanellopoulos.
It established the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 which became known as the "Régime of the Colonels". In 1973, the régime
abolished the Greek monarchy and in 1974, dictator Geórgios Papadopoulos denied help to the United States. After a second coup that year,
Colonel Ioannides was appointed as the new head-of-state. Ioannides was responsible for the 1974 coup against President Makarios
of Cyprus. The coup became the pretext for the first wave of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. The Cyprus events and the outcry
following a bloody suppression of Athens Polytechnic uprising in Athens led to the implosion of the military régime.
The former prime minister Konstantinos Karamanlis was invited back from Paris where he had lived in self-exile since 1963, marking
the beginning of the Third Hellenic Republic. Another previously exiled politician, Andreas Papandreou also returned and
founded the socialist PASOK Party, which won the 1981 election and dominated Greek politics for almost two decades.
After the restoration of democracy, Greece's stability and economic prosperity improved significantly. Greece rejoined NATO in 1980,
joined the European Union in 1981 and adopted the euro as its currency in 2001.
I have visited Greece in juli 2015
These are the places where i have been
Delphi
Kalávryta
Gulf of Corinth
In juli 2016 I have been at the Rhodope Mountains
During this trip, i have seen Stavroupoli
In april 2024 I have seen the eastern part of the Rhodope Mountains
During this trip, i have seen Alexandroupolis
Please let me know when you're having questions.
i would be pleased to help you.
Things to do and other tips
