> Expansion of Greek State
Greece independence from the Ottoman Era came in 1830. Then, it included only Attica, Central Greece and Peloponnese. It took more than 100 years to reach the today's boarders:
1864 (May 2): Britain transfers the Ionian islands to the Kingdom of Greece.
1881: The Ottomans gave most of Thessaly and Arta to Greece.
1913: After the Balkan Wars Greece gained Central and West Macedonia, south Epirus, Aegean islands (except Dodecanese) and Crete.
1920: According to the Sevres Protocol east Macedonia and Thrace were ceded in Greece and it was given the administration of Smyrna.
1923 (july 24): Lausanne Protocol takes from Greece east Thrace, the Islands Imvros and Tenedos and Smyrna and gives them back to Turkey.
1947 (February 10): With the Protocol of Paris Greece gained Dodecanese islands.
> World War I
Greece entered World War I in 1917 on the side of the Allies. Ten divisions of the Greek army fought with great valor along the Macedonian front. In 1918 they routed German and Bulgarian positions and pushed the front line northward. Germany and its allies soon capitulated, and Greek troops were among those who marched triumphantly into Constantinople. At the cost of splitting the nation, Venizelos had brought Greece into the war on the victorious side. To justify the cost of this result and heal the wounds caused by the National Schism, he returned to the Megali Idea.
About 5,000 Greek soldiers died in the 18 months Greece was at war.
> World War II
Greece entered World War II on 28 October 1940, when the Italian army invaded from Albania. The Greek army dealt the first victory for the Allies by defeating the invasion and pushing Mussolini's forces back into Albania. Hitler was reluctantly forced to send his own forces to overcome Greece in April 1941, and delay the invasion of the Soviet Union by six weeks.
After Greece was occupied and divided between the Axis powers, a large-scale Resistance movement developed in the country, which tied down a large number of Axis divisions.
Mainland Greece was liberated in October 1944 with the German withdrawal in the face of the advancing Red Army, while German garrisons continued to hold out in the Aegean Islands until after the war's end. The country was devastated by war and occupation, its economy and infrastructure lay in ruins. Greece suffered more than 300,000 casualties during the occupation, and the country's Jewish minority was almost completely exterminated in the Holocaust. Soon, however, a vicious civil war erupted between the British and American-sponsored conservative government and leftist guerrillas, which would last until 1949.
> Greek Civil War
After the end of the Second World War in 1944 the Greek Civil War took place between the predominantly conservative Greek civilian population and the armed forces of the Greek government, supported by the USA and the UK on one side and on the other side the Greek communists and key members of ELAS, the biggest Anti-Nazi resistance organization, the leadership of which was controlled by KKE, the Communist Party of Greece.
In 1949 the Civil War left Greece with more than 50,000 killed, 700,000 displaced inside the country, and catastrophic economic disruption. It also left deep political division in Greek society between leftist and rightist.
> The Junta
The military junta in Greece began on 21 April 1967 when army officers, led by colonel George Papadopoulos, brigadier Stylianos Pattakos and colonel Nikolaos Makarezos seized power in a coup d' etat.
The Junta lasted seven years, during which the military dictatorship abolished all political freedoms. Imprisonments, torture and exile took place during that period in Greece.
The sit-in at Athens University Law School in March 1973 and mainly the Polytechnic Uprising in November 17th of the same year contributed to the fall of the regime and the restoration of democracy.
The Junta came to an end in July 1974 after the Turkish invasion in Cyprus. Ioannides, who had overthrown Papadopoulos after the Polytechnic affair, disappeared along with most of the Junta government. Former Prime Minister Karamanlis was invited from Paris to form a government of national unity.
> Modern Greek History
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