Kingdom of Greece

History

Athena's Olive Tree and Greek Independence

In classical Greek myth, the goddess Athena and the sea god Poseidon contested the patronage of a new city; when Athena planted the first olive tree on the rocky Acropolis as a gift of peace and sustenance, the citizens named their city Athens in her honor. Preserving their Hellenic heritage through centuries of Byzantine and Ottoman rule, Greeks launched the War of Independence in 1821 and established the modern Kingdom of Greece in 1832.

Expansion Across the Aegean and Macedonia

Through the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 and World War I, the kingdom expanded from its Peloponnesian and Attican core to incorporate Epirus, Macedonia, Crete, and the Aegean islands, uniting most Greek-speaking lands around the Aegean Sea.

'Ohi Day' and Resistance in World War II

Before dawn on October 28, 1940, Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas rejected an ultimatum from Benito Mussolini's Kingdom of Italy - The Italian state founded by national unification in 1861, ruled by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime from 1922 to 1943 before becoming a republic in 1946. with a resolute 'Ohi' ('No'). Greek mountain divisions halted the Italian invasion in the Pindus range and pushed deep into Italian-held Albania, delivering the first Allied land victory against an Axis power. Although Nazi Germany - The totalitarian German state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945, which initiated World War II in Europe. intervened in April 1941 to occupy the mainland and Crete after costly airborne battles, Greek resistance movements and exiled forces fought continuously until liberation in 1944.