GREECE:
(Greek: Ελλάδα, Elláda, IPA: [ɛˈlaða], or Ελλάς, Ellás, [ɛˈlas]), officially the Hellenic Republic [Ελληνική ΔημοκÏατία (É›liniˈkʲi ðimokraˈtia)],[3] is a country in Southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula. It has borders with Albania, the (former Yugoslav) Vardarska and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east and south of mainland Greece, while the Ionian Sea lies to the west. Both parts of the Eastern Mediterranean basin feature a vast number of islands.Greece lies at the juncture of Europe, Asia and Africa. It is heir to the heritages of ancient Greece, the Roman and Byzantine Empire, and nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule. Greece has a particularly long and eventful history with a diverse cultural heritage that both shaped and has been shaped by cultures throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. It is regarded as the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, the Olympic Games, Western literature, political science, major scientific and mathematic principles, and Western drama including both tragedy and comedy.Today, Greece is a developed country, a member of the European Union since 1981, a member of the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union since 2001, NATO since 1952, the OECD since 1961, the WEU since 1995 and ESA since 2005. Athens is the capital; Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion, Volos and Larissa are some of the country's other major cities.HISTORY OF GREECE:
The southern shores of Greece's Aegean Sea viewed the emergence of one of the first advanced civilizations in Europe. Minoan and Mycenean civilizations, and later Greek city-states, emerged across the Greek peninsula but also on the shores of Black Sea, South Italy and Asia Minor, reaching great levels of prosperity that resulted in an unprecedented cultural boom, expressed in architecture, tragedy, drama, science and philosophy, and nurtured in Athens under a democratic environment. Athens and Sparta led the way in repelling the Persian Empire in a series of battles. Both were later overshadowed by Thebes and eventually Macedonia, with the latter under the guidance of Alexander the Great uniting and leading the Greek world to victory over the Persians, to presage the Hellenistic era, itself brought only partially to a close two centuries later with the establishment of Roman rule over Greek lands in 146 BC.The subsequent mixture of Roman ,and Hellenic culture took form in the making of the Byzantine Empire in 330 AD around Constantinople (today Istanbul, Turkey), and remained a major cultural and military force for the next 1,123 years until its fall at the hands of Ottomans in 1453. On the eve of the Ottoman era the Greek intelligentsia migrated to Western Europe, playing a significant role in the Western European Renaissance through the transferring of works by Ancient Greeks to Western Europe. Nevertheless, the Ottoman millet system contributed to the ethnic cohesion of Orthodox Greeks by segregating the various peoples within the Ottoman Empire based on religion as the latter played an integral role in the formation of modern Greek identity.On March 25th of 1821, the Greeks rebelled against the Ottoman empire. Through the Greek War of Independence, successfully fought against the Ottoman Empire from 1821 to 1829, the nascent Greek state was finally recognized under the London Protocol. In 1827, Ioannis Kapodistrias, a noble Greek from the Ionian Islands, was chosen as the first governor of the new Republic. However, following his assassination, the Great Powers soon installed a monarchy under Otto, of the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. In 1843, an uprising forced the King to grant a constitution and a representative assembly. Due to his unimpaired authoritarian rule, he was eventually dethroned in 1863 and replaced by Prince Vilhelm (William) of Denmark, who took the name George I and brought with him the Ionian Islands as a coronation gift from Britain. In 1877, Charilaos Trikoupis, a dominant figure of the Greek political scene who is attributed with the significant improvement of the country's infrastructure, curbed the power of the monarchy to interfere in the assembly by issuing the rule of vote of confidence to any potential prime minister.
March 25, 1821: Germanos of Patras, blessing the Greek flag at Agia Lavra. Theodoros Vryzakis, 1865.
March 25, 1821: Germanos of Patras, blessing the Greek flag at Agia Lavra. Theodoros Vryzakis, 1865.
July 24, 1974: Konstantinos Karamanlis arrives in Athens on the French Presidential jet, courtesy of French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
July 24, 1974: Konstantinos Karamanlis arrives in Athens on the French Presidential jet, courtesy of French President Valéry Giscard d'EstaingAs a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, Greece had successfully increased the extent of her territory and population, a challenging context both socially and economically. In the following years, the struggle between the new King Constantine I and his charismatic prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos over the country's foreign policy on the eve of World War I dominated the country's political order, and divided the country into two bitterly hostile factions (see National Schism).In the aftermath of WW I, Greece fought against Turkish nationalists led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), with the traumatic conflict ending in a massive population exchange between the two countries under the Treaty of Lausanne. Instability and successive coup d'etats marked the following era, which was coloured by the massive task of incorporating 1.5 million Greek refugees from Asia Minor into Greek society.On 28 October 1940 Fascist Italy demanded the surrender of Greece, but the Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas famously responded to the Italian ultimatum with the single word "OXI" ("No"). In the following Greco-Italian War, Greece repelled Italian forces into Albania, giving the Allies their first victory over Axis forces on land. The country would eventually fall to urgently dispatched German forces during the Battle of Greece, but the occupiers nevertheless met serious challenges from the Greek Resistance.After liberation, Greece experienced a civil war between Royalist and Communist forces, which led to economic devastation and severe social tensions between its Rightists and large Communist Leftists. The next 20 years were characterized by a significant economic growth, also propelled in part by the Marshall Plan. In 1965, a period of political turbulence led to a coup d’etat on April 21, 1967 by the US-supported Regime of the Colonels. On November 1973 the Athens Polytechnic Uprising sent shock waves across the regime, and a counter-coup established Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannides as dictator. On July 20, 1974, as Turkey invaded the island of Cyprus, the regime collapsed.Ex-Premier Constantine Karamanlis was invited back from Paris where he had lived in self-exile since 1963, marking the beginning of the Metapolitefsi era; a 1975 democratic republican constitution was activated and the monarchy abolished by a referendum held that same year. Meanwhile, Andreas Papandreou founded the Panhellenic Socialist Party, or PASOK, in response to Constantine Karamanlis' New Democracy party, and the two groupings have dominated Greek political affairs in the ensuing decades. Greece became the tenth member of the European Union on January 1, 1981 and ever since, the nation has experienced a remarkable and sustained economic growth. Widespread investments in industrial enterprises and heavy infrastructure, as well as funds from the European Union and growing revenues from tourism, shipping and a fast growing service sector have raised the country's standard of living to unprecedented levels. The country adopted the Euro in 2001, and successfully organised the 2004 Olympic Games in AthensCULTURE OF GREECE:
Greek culture evolved over several thousand years, with its earliest known civilization being in the Mycenean and Minoan era, continuing into Classical Greece, the birth of the Hellenistic era and through the influence of the Roman Empire and its Greek Eastern successor the Byzantine Empire. The Ottoman Empire also had a significant influence on Greek culture, but the Greek war of independence is credited for the revitalization of Greece and establishing a single sovereign single entity, of its multi-faceted culture throughout the ages.Greece is generally known as "the cradle of Western civilization.
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