History of Greece

The history of Greece tells the story of a very old and important civilization. It is about the land that is now Greece and the Greek people who lived there. Over many years, the Greeks lived in different places and ruled many areas. Because of this, their history changes and grows with time.

Greece is famous for its rich culture. It has great writers, artists, and thinkers who shaped how people think about the world. From ancient times, Greeks made important discoveries and created ideas that still influence us today. Their stories, buildings, and way of life are still studied and admired around the world.

Timeline

The history of Greece has many important periods. It starts with Prehistoric Greece, which includes:

• Paleolithic Greece: This began around 2 million years ago and ended in 20,000 BC. Changes in the land and climate helped early humans survive.
• Mesolithic Greece: From 13,000 BC to 7,000 BC, people built small communities.
• Neolithic Greece: Starting around 7,000 BC, people began farming, and the first villages appeared. Art also became better.
• Bronze Age Greece: From around 3,200 BC to 1,100 BC, people used metals more. Cultures like the Cycladic culture on the Cyclades and the Minoan civilization on Crete grew strong. The Mycenaean Greek culture rose and then fell.

Ancient Greece lasted from about 1,200 BC to AD 600 and includes:

• Greek Dark Ages (or Iron Age): 1,100–800 BC
• Archaic period: 800–490 BC
• Classical period: 490–323 BC
• Hellenistic period: 323–146 BC
• Roman Greece: From 146 BC to AD 324, when Rome ruled Greece

Byzantine Greece covers the time when Greece was part of the Byzantine Empire from AD 324 until the city of Constantinople fell in 1453.

Frankish/Latin Greece lasted from the year 1204, after the Fourth Crusade, until 1797.

Ottoman Greece was when the Ottoman Empire ruled Greece from 1453 until the Greek Revolution of 1821.

Modern Greece began in 1821 and continues today. At its peak, Greek culture spread from Egypt to the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan. Today, most Greeks live in Greece and Cyprus.

Main articles: Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age Greece, Ancient Greece, Byzantine Greece, Frankish/Latin Greece, Ottoman Greece, Modern Greece

Prehistoric Greece

Main articles: Prehistoric Balkans, Prehistory of Anatolia, and Prehistoric Cyprus

See also: Dimini, Sesklo, Dispilio, Theopetra cave, and Trachilos footprints

Pre-Paleolithic Period

Very old bones of early humans have been found in Greece, dating back millions of years. These include one called Ouranopithecus macedoniensis from about 10.6 to 8.7 million years ago and another called Graecopithecus from 7.2 million years ago. Footprints from 5.7 million years ago found on the island of Crete suggest humans may have lived outside of Africa earlier than scientists thought.

Paleolithic Period (c. 2M BC– 13000 BC)

The Paleolithic period in Greece is not well studied because most research has focused on later times. However, new discoveries have been made in recent years. Early humans may have first lived in Greece between 2.5 and 1.5 million years ago, but proof of this is still missing. The oldest clear evidence of humans living in Greece is from 700,000 years ago, found in Arcadia and Peloponnesus. The Apidima Cave in Mani, southern Greece, holds the oldest known remains of modern humans outside of Africa, dating to 210,000 years ago.

Mesolithic Period (13000–7000 BC)

The Mesolithic period in Greece was between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic periods. Most Mesolithic sites in Greece are near the coast. Important sites include Franchthi Cave, Kalamakia Cave in Mani (Peloponnese), Asprochaliko Cave in Epirus, and Theopetra Cave. These sites were lived in for a long time during both the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods.

Neolithic Period to Bronze Age (7000–1100 BC)

Main articles: Neolithic Europe, Neolithic Greece, Pelasgians, Helladic period, and Proto-Greek

Farming began in Europe around 7000–6500 BC when people from the Near East arrived in Greece by traveling through the Aegean Sea. The earliest farms in Europe were found in Greece and date back to between 8500 and 9000 years ago. The first people who spoke Greek arrived in mainland Greece during this time or a little later.

Cycladic and Minoan civilization

Main articles: Cycladic civilization and Minoan civilization

The Cycladic culture from the Cyclades islands is known for simple white marble statues of women. The Minoan civilization on Crete lived from about 3000 to 1400 BC. We do not know much about them because their writing, called Linear A, has not been decoded. The name “Minoans” comes from Minos, a legendary king of Crete. They were traders and traveled all over the Mediterranean.

The Minoans faced natural disasters like a big eruption on the island of Thera around 1628–1627 BC and earthquakes around 1600 BC. By 1425 BC, fires destroyed most Minoan palaces except Knossos. This allowed the Mycenaean Greeks, who were influenced by Minoan culture, to take over Crete. The Minoan ruins were first found in 1900 by Arthur Evans when he began digging at Knossos.

Pre-Mycenean Helladic period

After the Neolithic period, the Early and Middle Helladic periods began on the Greek mainland. During this time, people changed from using stone tools to metal tools. This led to the growth of small states that would later become the Mycenaean civilization. Settlements grew during this time, especially in places like Tiryns.

Mycenaean civilization

Main article: Mycenaean Greece

The Mycenaean civilization started around 1600 BC from the culture of the Early and Middle Helladic periods in mainland Greece. It lasted until about 1100 BC. Mycenaean Greece is the Late Helladic Bronze Age civilization and is the setting for many Greek myths and stories. Important Mycenaean sites include Mycenae, Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns.

Mycenaean society was led by warrior leaders. Around 1400 BC, they took control of Crete and used a script called Linear B to write an early form of Greek. They buried their leaders in round tombs called beehive tombs, often placing weapons and valuable items with them. Around 1100–1050 BC, the Mycenaean civilization collapsed, and Greece entered a time known as the “dark age” with fewer people and less writing.

Ancient Greece (1100–146 BC)

Main article: Ancient Greece

Further information: Classical Anatolia and Ancient history of Cyprus

Ancient Greece covers a time in Greek history from around 1050–750 BC, called the Greek Dark Ages, until around AD 600. Often, people talk about Ancient Greece as all Greek history before the Roman Empire, but historians usually use the term more carefully. Some include earlier times like the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, while others think these were very different from later Greek cultures. The Ancient Greek period is often said to start in 776 BC with the first Olympic Games, but most historians now say it began around 1000 BC.

The Greek Dark Ages ended with the Archaic period, starting around 800 BC and lasting until 480 BC when Persia invaded Greece the second time. During this time, the Greek alphabet and early Greek writing developed, and small city-states called poleis formed. After the Dark Ages, Greeks moved to places like the Black Sea, Southern Italy (known as "Magna Graecia"), and Asia Minor. The Classical period began during wars with Persia in the 5th century BC. This time saw growth in democracy, art, theater, writing, and thinking in Ancient Greece. The Classical period is often thought to end in 323 BC when Alexander the Great died, leading into the Hellenistic period, which lasted until the Roman Empire rose near the end of the first millennium BC. Not everyone sees the Classical and Hellenistic periods as separate—some think Ancient Greek civilization continued until Christianity spread widely in the 3rd century.

Ancient Greece is seen by many as the start of Western civilization. Greek culture strongly influenced the Roman Empire, which shared this culture across Europe. Ancient Greek ideas about language, government, schools, art, and building shaped the modern world, especially during the Renaissance in Europe and later during neo-classical times in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Iron Age (1100–800 BC)

Main article: Greek Dark Ages

Further information: Protogeometric art

The Greek Dark Ages, from about 1100–800 BC, cover the time after the end of the Mycenaean civilization around the 11th century BC until the first Greek city-states appeared in the 9th century BC. This period also includes the stories of Homer and the earliest use of the Greek alphabet.

The Mycenaean civilization ended around the same time as other big empires like the Hittite and Egyptian empires. The reason is still not fully known, but it might have been attacks by groups called the Sea Peoples who used iron weapons. Stories from ancient Greece talk about a Dorian invasion, where Dorians moved into Greece with better iron weapons, but archaeologists have not found strong proof of this. During this time, kings ruled but were later replaced by groups of leaders called an aristocracy. Fighting shifted from cavalry to infantry because iron was cheaper and easier to find than bronze. Over time, people became more equal, leading to the end of kings and the rise of family-based rule.

At the end of this slow period, Greek civilization began to grow again, reaching as far as the Black Sea and Spain. Writing was learned from the Phoenicians and spread north into Italy and among the Gauls.

Archaic Greece

Main article: Archaic Greece

Further information: Orientalizing Period and Geometric Art

In the 8th century BC, Greece started to recover from the Dark Ages after the Mycenaean civilization ended. Writing had been lost and the Mycenaean way of writing was forgotten, but the Greeks changed the Phoenician alphabet to make the Greek alphabet. From the 9th century BC, we start seeing written records. Greece had many small self-governing groups, shaped by the islands, valleys, and mountains that separated them.

The Archaic period is also called the Orientalizing period, when Greece was nearby but not controlled by the growing Neo-Assyrian Empire. Greece took in many ideas from the East for art, religion, and myths. Archaeologists study this time through Geometric pottery.

Classical Greece

Main article: Classical Greece

Further information: Classical Athens

The basic unit of government in Ancient Greece was the polis, meaning "city-state". This idea is where we get the word "politics" today. Each polis was supposed to be independent, but some were under others, like colonies under their mother city, or had governments controlled by others, like the Thirty Tyrants in Athens, set up by Sparta after the Peloponnesian War. Still, the main power in each polis was inside that city. This led to wars between different poleis and alliances going to war together, like against the Persian Empire.

Persian Wars

Main article: Greco-Persian Wars

Two big wars shaped Classical Greece. The first was the Persian Wars from 499–449 BC, written about by the Greek historian Herodotus in his Histories. By the late 6th century BC, the Achaemenid Persian Empire ruled over Greek cities in Ionia (west coast of modern Turkey) and had expanded into the Balkans and Eastern Europe. In 499 BC, Greek cities in Ionia, led by Miletus, revolted against Persia, with help from Athens and Eretria. After the revolt failed, Darius I invaded Greece in 492 BC to punish the mainland Greeks. His army, led by Mardonius, crossed the Hellespont, took control of Thrace, and made Macedonia a client kingdom. But before reaching Greece, his fleet was destroyed in a storm near Mount Athos. In 490 BC, Darius sent another fleet across the Aegean Sea to attack Athens. After destroying Eretria, the fleet met the Athenian army at Marathon, where Athens won a big victory.

In 480 BC, Xerxes I, Darius’s successor, launched the Second Persian invasion of Greece. The Persians won early battles, like at Thermopylae, where King Leonidas I of Sparta and his small force held for three days before being overwhelmed. Persian forces took and burned Athens, but the Greeks turned the tide with a big navy victory at Salamis later that year. Themistocles, an Athenian general, led the Persian fleet into narrow straits where its size was a problem. Xerxes left, leaving Mardonius to continue; in 479 BC, Greek armies defeated the Persians at Plataea.

Athenian hegemony

Main article: Athenian empire

To fight the war and protect Greece from more Persian attacks, Athens started the Delian League in 477 BC. At first, each city in the League gave ships and soldiers, but over time Athens made smaller cities give money instead so Athens could supply their ships. Leaving the League could be punished. After some losses against Persia, the money box was moved from Delos to Athens, giving Athens more control over the League. The Delian League was often called the Athenian Empire.

In 458 BC, while the Persian Wars were still happening, war started between the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta and its allies. After some unclear fights, they made peace in 447 BC to last thirty years, but it only lasted until 431 BC when the Peloponnesian War began.

Peloponnesian War

Main article: Peloponnesian War

The main sources for the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) are Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War and Xenophon’s Hellenica. Both were Athenian generals who lived through the war.

The war began in 431 BC over a fight between Corcyra and Epidamnus. Corinth, an ally of Sparta in the Peloponnesian League, helped Epidamnus. Athens, fearing Corinth would take over Corcyra’s navy (the second largest after Athens), got involved. They stopped Corinth from landing at Battle of Sybota, besieged Potidaea, and blocked trade with Corinth’s ally Megara using the Megarian decree.

There was debate among Greeks about who broke the treaty between the Delian and Peloponnesian Leagues, since Athens was defending a new ally. The Corinthians asked Sparta for help. Worried about Athens’s growing power and its actions against Megara (which would hurt them), Sparta said the treaty was broken, and the Peloponnesian War began.

The first part of the war (called the Archidamian War after the Spartan king Archidamus II) lasted until 421 BC with the Peace of Nicias. It started with Pericles, an Athenian general, suggesting a defensive war, avoiding battle with Sparta’s stronger land army, and getting everything needed by using Athens’s strong navy. Athens planned to wait out Sparta, whose people were worried about their subjugated population, the helots, revolting if they left the city for long.

This plan meant Athens had to handle regular sieges, and in 430 BC, a terrible disease killed about a quarter of its people, including Pericles. With Pericles gone, less careful leaders took over in Athens, and the city went on the attack. In 425 BC, Athens captured 300–400 Spartan hoplites at the Battle of Pylos, a big loss for Sparta. But Athens lost badly at Delium in 424 BC and Amphipolis in 422. The Peace of Nicias in 421 BC ended the first part, with Sparta getting its hoplites back and Athens getting Amphipolis back.

The Peace of Nicias was supposed to last fifty years, but it only lasted seven. The second part of the Peloponnesian War began in 415 BC when Athens attacked Sicily to help its ally Segesta against Syracuse, a Spartan ally in Sicily, and to take over the island. At first, Sparta was slow to help Syracuse, but Alcibiades, an Athenian general who suggested the attack, switched sides after being accused of impious acts. Alcibiades convinced Sparta they couldn’t let Athens take over Syracuse. The attack ended badly for Athens.

After Athens lost in Sicily, its Ionian areas rebelled with Sparta’s help, following Alcibiades’s advice. In 411 BC, an oligarchical revolt in Athens tried to make peace, but the Athenian navy, still loyal to democracy, kept fighting. The navy brought back Alcibiades, who had to leave Sparta after supposedly seducing the wife of Agis II, a Spartan king, and he led Athens again. The rule in Athens fell apart, and Alcibiades took back what Athens had lost.

In 407 BC, Alcibiades was replaced after a small navy loss at the Battle of Notium. The Spartan general Lysander, building up Sparta’s navy, kept winning. Athens won at the Battle of Arginusae in 406 BC but couldn’t rescue all its sailors because of bad weather, so the city executed or exiled eight top navy leaders. Lysander then crushed Athens at the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC, nearly destroying the Athenian navy.

Spartan hegemony

Main article: Spartan hegemony

Athens gave in a year later, ending the Peloponnesian War and starting a short time of Spartan hegemony in Greece. The war caused a lot of damage. Unhappiness with Spartan rule from Athens and former Spartan allies led to the Corinthian War from 395–387 BC. With help from the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Argos weakened Sparta’s military, but they couldn’t end Spartan control. The war ended with the Treaty of Antalcidas in 387 BC, where Sparta gave up Ionia and Cyprus to the Persian Empire.

Theban hegemony

Main article: Theban hegemony

The Corinthian War and what followed caused more unhappiness in Spartan Greece, leading Thebes to attack again. Their leader, Epaminondas, defeated Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, starting a time of Theban control in Greece.

Philip II of Macedon

Main article: Rise of Macedon

In 346 BC, Thebes, stuck in a ten-year war with Phocis, asked for help from Philip II of Macedon. Macedon quickly brought the Greek city-states together under Macedonian control in the League of Corinth from 338–337 BC.

Alexander the Great

Main article: Wars of Alexander the Great

In 336 BC, power went to Philip’s son Alexander the Great, who spent the next ten years taking over the Persian Empire and much of Western Asia and Egypt. By the time he was 30, Alexander had built one of the largest empires in history, from Greece to northwest India. He never lost a battle and is seen as one of history’s greatest military leaders. After Alexander died in 323 BC, the Macedonian Empire fell apart in widespread civil wars, starting the Hellenistic Age of Greek history.

Hellenistic Greece

Main articles: Hellenistic Period and Hellenistic Greece

The Hellenistic period of Greek history starts with Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BC and ends when Rome took over the Greek lands and islands in 146 BC. Even though Roman rule didn’t end Hellenistic society and culture, which stayed much the same until Christianity began, it did end Greek political freedom.

During this time, “Greece proper” (meaning today’s Greece) became less important in the Greek-speaking world. The big centers of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria and Antioch, the capitals of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria. (See Hellenistic civilization for Greek culture outside Greece during this time.)

Athens and its allies tried to fight Macedon after hearing Alexander the Great died in 323 BC but were defeated within a year in the Lamian War. Meanwhile, fights over power happened among Alexander’s generals, breaking up his empire and creating new kingdoms in the Wars of the Diadochi. Ptolemy got Egypt, and Seleucus got the Levant, Mesopotamia, and areas east. Control of Greece, Thrace, and Anatolia was disputed, but by 298 BC the Antigonid dynasty took over from the Antipatrid. Pyrrhus of Epirus became king of Epirus in 297 BC with help from Ptolemy I Soter. He ruled Macedon with Lysimachus after removing Demetrius in 288 BC. During the Pyrrhic War of 280–275 BC, Pyrrhus fought Rome for Tarentum, winning hard fights at Heraclea and Asculum. Pyrrhus took the Macedonian throne from Antigonus II Gonatas in 274 BC but died in a street battle at Argos.

Antigonid control of the cities changed often, with many revolts. Athens, Rhodes, Pergamum, and the Aetolian League joined Rome against Macedon in the Macedonian Wars. The Achaean League, first allied with the Ptolemies, was mostly independent and controlled most of the Peloponnese. Sparta stayed independent but usually didn’t join any league.

In 267 BC, Ptolemy II convinced Athens and Sparta to rebel against Macedon in the Chremonidean War, named after the Athenian leader Chremonides. They lost, and Athens lost its freedom and democratic ways. This ended Athens as a political power, though it stayed the biggest, richest, and most cultured city in Greece. Macedon beat the Ptolemaic navy at Cos and brought most Aegean islands, except Rhodes, under its control.

Sparta kept fighting the Achaeans, and in 227 BC it attacked Achaea and took over the League. The other Achaeans preferred faraway Macedon over nearby Sparta and teamed up with Macedon. In 222 BC, the Macedonian army beat the Spartans at the battle of Selassia.

Philip V of Macedon was the last Greek leader with the skill and chance to unite Greece and keep it free from Rome’s growing power. Under him, the Peace of Naupactus in 217 BC ended fights between Macedon and the Greek leagues, and at that time he controlled all of Greece except Athens, Rhodes, and Pergamum.

In 215 BC, though, Philip allied with Rome’s enemy Carthage. Rome quickly got the Achaean cities to break their loyalty to Philip and made alliances with Rhodes and Pergamum, now the strongest in Asia Minor. The First Macedonian War started in 212 BC and ended without a clear winner in 205 BC, but Macedon was now seen as Rome’s enemy.

In 202 BC, Rome beat Carthage and could focus on the east. In 198 BC, the Second Macedonian War began because Rome thought Macedon might help the Seleucid Empire, the biggest power in the East. Philip’s allies in Greece left him, and in 197 BC he was crushed at the Battle of Cynoscephalae by the Roman commander Titus Quinctius Flaminius.

Luckily for the Greeks, Flaminius liked Greek culture. Philip had to give up his navy and become Rome’s ally, but he wasn’t treated too harshly. At the Isthmian Games in 196 BC, Flaminius said all Greek cities were free, though Rome put soldiers in Corinth and Chalcis. But the freedom Rome promised was not real. All cities except Rhodes were put in a new group Rome controlled, and Rome supported aristocratic governments.

Roman Greece (146 BC – AD 324)

Main articles: Roman Empire, Greco-Roman world, and Roman Greece

In 146 BC, Greece was taken over by the Roman Republic. Greek culture kept growing and doing well. The Romans let Greek cities keep some of their own rules, and they also took many ideas from Greek culture.

Macedonia became part of the Roman world after its king, Perseus, lost to the Roman leader Aemilius Paullus at Pydna in 168 BC. Later, in 146 BC, Macedonia became an official Roman area with its capital at Thessalonica. Over time, all the Greek city-states started to follow Roman ways, but the Romans let Greeks manage their own local matters. Important places like the agora in Athens stayed busy centers for community and government life.

In 212 AD, a rule made by Emperor Caracalla gave all free men in the Roman Empire the same rights as people in Rome. This helped connect different parts of the empire more closely. Areas like Greece, which were already close to Rome, benefited more from this change. This rule helped prepare the way for Greece, later called the Eastern Roman Empire, to become a strong power in Europe and around the Mediterranean Sea during the Middle Ages.

Middle Ages

Byzantine rule (324–1204)

Main articles: Byzantine Empire, Byzantine Greece, and Barbarian invasions

See also: Decline of Greco-Roman polytheism and Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire

Further information: Byzantine Anatolia and Cyprus in the Middle Ages

When the Roman Empire split into an East and a West, Greece became more important. The city of Constantinople (now Istanbul) became the new capital and the center of power. This brought Greece closer to the heart of the empire.

The East Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire, was led by emperors like Constantine the Great and Justinian. They worked to protect the empire’s borders and build its strength. During this time, the Orthodox Church was formed, which became very important to the people.

Economic prosperity

In the 12th century, Greece began to grow and prosper. Leaders known as the Komnenoi emperors helped the empire recover. Farms became more productive, and towns started to grow again. More people lived in cities like Athens, Thessaloniki, Thebes, and Corinth. Trade with places like the Venetian Republic brought wealth and goods to Greece.

Artistic revival

Main article: Macedonian Renaissance

Art also flourished during this time. Beautiful churches were built, and artists created colorful mosaics showing animals and scenes from nature. The art from this period influenced many other places, including Venice and parts of Sicily.

The Fourth Crusade (1204)

Main articles: Fourth Crusade and Frankokratia

In 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, soldiers from Western Europe took over Constantinople. This led to new states in the area, and Greek lands were controlled by different rulers. Feudal systems, common in Western Europe, began to appear in Greece.

From partial Byzantine restoration to 1453

The Latin rule did not last long. In 1261, Byzantine leaders took back Constantinople, but the empire was weaker. Over time, Ottoman forces took more land until they captured Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire.

Venetian and Ottoman rule (15th century – 1821)

Main articles: Stato da Màr, Ottoman Greece, Septinsular Republic, and Modern Greek Enlightenment

In the 15th century, Greeks tried to keep parts of their land, like the Peloponnese. By the 1500s, most of mainland Greece and many islands were ruled by the Ottoman Empire. Some places, like Nafplio and Monemvasia, were still under the Venetians. The Ionian Islands were mostly Venetian, except for short times.

When the Ottomans took control, many Greeks moved. Some clever Greeks went to Western Europe, helping start the European Renaissance. Others moved to the mountains.

Life under Ottoman rule was different for everyone. Greeks had some freedoms but also faced unfair treatments. The Ottoman government grouped people by religion, which helped Greeks keep their identity through their Christian faith. Some Greeks hid their beliefs to avoid high taxes. Others changed their religion but still felt connected to their Greek roots.

The Ottomans ruled most of Greece until the early 1800s. In 1800, the Ionian Islands became self-governed during the French Revolutionary Wars, forming the Septinsular Republic with Corfu as its capital, before the larger Greek revolution began.

Modern Greek nation state (1821 – present)

Main article: History of modern Greece

Further information: Greek War of Independence, First Hellenic Republic, Kingdom of Greece, and Megali Idea

In 1821, Greece said it wanted to be free from the Ottoman Empire, but this was not accepted until 1829. Many people from other countries helped Greece. In 1827, ships from Britain, France, and Russia destroyed an Ottoman and Egyptian fleet. Ioannis Kapodistrias, a Greek leader, helped Greece become free and became the leader of the new country. The first capital was Aigina, then Nafplion. After Kapodistrias was killed, Greece became a kingdom with King Otto from Bavaria, and later King George I from Denmark. In 1834, the capital was moved to Athens.

During the 1800s and early 1900s, Greece grew and changed. More people lived there, and many moved to the United States to find jobs. Cities grew, and new businesses started. Athens grew from a small village to a bigger city.

Modernization

Balkan Wars

Main articles: Goudi coup and Greece in the Balkan Wars

Greece joined the Balkan Wars in 1912–1913, which made the country almost twice as big. After these wars, parts of Epirus, Macedonia, Crete, and the northern Aegean islands became part of Greece.

World War I and Greco-Turkish War

Main articles: Greece in World War I, Macedonian front, Provisional Government of National Defence, National Schism, and Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)

When World War I began in 1914, Greece was unsure whether to help the Allies or stay neutral. This caused disagreements in the country. After the war, Greece was given control of the city of Smyrna, where many Greek people lived. However, fighting began with Turkish forces, leading to a hard war. The war ended with an agreement that moved many people between Greece and Turkey.

Interwar to World War II

See also: Second Hellenic Republic, 4th of August Regime, Greece in World War II, Hyperinflation in Greece, and Greek Resistance

The Second Hellenic Republic started in 1924 but ended in 1935 when King George II returned. In 1936, a leader named Metaxas took control of the government. Even with a small army, Greece fought Italy in 1940 and stopped them. Germany then invaded Greece in 1941. The war brought hard times for many Greeks.

When the war ended in 1944, resistance groups took control of Athens, but British forces also arrived.

Greek Civil War (1944–1949)

Further information: Dekemvriana and Greek Civil War

The Greek Civil War was a big fight in the early years of the Cold War. It was between different groups in Greece from 1944 to 1949. The war ended with the defeat of the groups that wanted a different government, and Greece became an ally of the United States and joined NATO.

Postwar development and integration in Western Bloc (1949–1967)

In the 1950s and 1960s, Greece grew stronger with help from the United States. The country joined NATO in 1952. Women gained more rights, and Greece’s economy improved, especially in tourism. The economy grew very fast during this time.

Military dictatorship (1967–1974)

Main articles: Greek military junta of 1967–1974 and 1974 Cypriot coup d'état

In 1967, the military took control of Greece in a coup. This time, called the Regime of the Colonels, kept Greece away from other European countries. In 1974, after some hard events in Cyprus and protests in Athens, the military leaders lost power.

Third Hellenic Republic (1974 – present)

Main articles: Metapolitefsi and Third Hellenic Republic

The end of military rule brought a new democratic government. Konstantinos Karamanlis returned from exile and helped create a new constitution. Greece rejoined NATO in 1980 and joined the European Union in 1981. The country faced economic problems but also saw improvements. New leaders and parties came to power over the years.

Greece in the Eurozone

Main article: Greek government-debt crisis

The 2008 financial crisis caused trouble for Greece, making it hard to pay debts. This led to difficult times and protests. Greece got help from other European countries and the International Monetary Fund, but needed to make hard economic changes. Political parties changed, with new leaders like Alexis Tsipras and Kyriakos Mitsotakis taking charge at different times.

In 2020, Greece elected its first female president, Katerina Sakellaropoulou. By 2024, the economy was growing again, though it still had challenges. In March 2025, Konstantinos Tasoulas became the new president of Greece.