History

The shores of Greece's Aegean Sea viewed the emergence 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.As 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.

The subsequent mixture of Roman and Hellenic culture took form in the making of the Byzantine Empire in 330 AD around Constantinople, 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. 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.

In 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

As 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.

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[10] 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 organized the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

Information Courtsey of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece