History of Greece

The history of Greece traditionally covers the study of the Greek people, the areas where they ruled, and the territory that is now composed by modern Greece. The extent of the habitation and rules among Greek people varied through the years that in consequence, the history of Greece seemed to have been flexible in context.


The first tribes that spoke Greek have been thought to have come to the Greek mainland in the third millennium BC. During this time, many pre-Greek people had already been committed in the practice of agriculture since the seventh millennium BC.

The civilization of the Greek people spread from Greece to Egypt and to Pakistan's Hindu Kush mountains. The southern shores of the Aegean Sea of Greece experienced the rise of some of the initial advanced civilizations in Europe. Civilizations that emerged across Greek peninsula were the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. The city-states civilizations soon emerged after the Minoan and the Mycenaean. These civilizations spread to the shores of South Italy, Black Sea and Asia Minor. They reached immense levels of prosperity which resulted in an exceptional boom in their culture. The boom had been made obvious by the agriculture, science, drama and philosophy developed by the Greeks that were fostered in Athens under a government of democracy. Sparta and Athens were the ones responsible for the overthrowing of the Persian Empire, but they were later surpassed by the Thebes and Macedonia. Macedonia was led under the guidance of Alexander the Great who united and led Greeks to win over the Persians to signify the birth of the Hellenistic era. The Roman rule over the Greek islands was established in 146 BC.

The Byzantine Empire in 330 AD around Constantinople was a result of the mixture of the Roman and Hellenic culture. The Byzantine Empire had been the major military and cultural force in Ancient Greece until its fall to the Ottomans in 1453. In 1821, the Greeks waged war against the Ottomans to have the Ottomans grant the Greek people their independence. The war was concluded in 1830 when England, Britain, France, and Russia forced the Ottoman Empire to give Greece its independence. In 1833, the independent state becomes the Kingdom of Greece. In 1875, parliamentary forms of government were introduced. In 1910, Eleftherios Venizelos, the leader of the new liberal party became prime minister. He dominated the Greek politics for decades. Crete became part of Greece in 1913. Venezilos stepped down from his position in 1915 and in 1917, Greece took part in the World War I and fought against Turkey and other central powers. In 1921, the Turkish forces defeated the Greek army, which awarded Greece parts of Asia Minor which included the city of Smyrna – a place having more than 1.3 million in population. In 1924, Greece was proclaimed Greek Republic that made it a parliamentary republic. Greek became a military dictatorship in 1967, after a military coup led by Georgious Papadopoulos. The king was dismissed from position in 1973 and the Greek Republic was established having Papadopoulos as president.

In 1975, a democratic republican constitution was established and made active and the abolishment of the monarchy was made on the same year. On January 1, 1981, Greece became the tenth member of the European Union. And since then, the country experienced significant economic growth and rise in the standard of living.