History of Greece

                                            this is europe and here's greece now

palmetto greece

sits among the most ancient of the

nations and by neolithic times was

producing skilled artisans

these strange-looking marble figures

were carved by the mysterious cycladic

culture but the first advanced

civilization of europe arose on the

greek island of crete known to us as the

minoans the minoans are also something

of a riddle but seem to have had it

pretty good there's not really any

evidence of

warfare among them but there's dolphins

and bull leaping and fishing i can't

think of a bronze age people with a more

cheerful form of art than the minoans

they were also

clever constructionists building big

palaces and sewerage systems and writing

in a script which no one's deciphered

and trading with their neighbors across

the seas

then after a thousand years or so they

slowly declined but not before they'd

influenced the people on the greek

mainland whom we know as the myceneans

they were not as refined or elegant as

the minoans in fact they were rather

rough and brutish but great warriors

with helmets made from the tusks of

bores they developed the earliest

written form of the greek language and

it is in mycenaean times that most of

the mythic greek heroes are said to have

lived perseus heracles achilles odysseus

and so on then everything fell to pieces

pretty violently in the late bronze age

collapse and invasion and city sacking

and population reduction followed greece

capsized into what's commonly called a

dark age for

centuries and writing and advancement

mostly stopped more light begins to

trickle in

as we tread into the archaic era and

some truly big things start happening

there was the establishment of the polis

for instance

rather than being a single political

entity greece became a patchwork of

fiercely independent city-states like

athens corinth thebes and sparta

something greece's mountainous geography

undoubtedly had a hand in the greeks

adopted an alphabet from phoenicia but

added letters for vowels the first to do

so

in this new alphabet around the 8th

century bc a man named homer is believed

to have written the wondrous epic poems

the iliad and odyssey thus inaugurating

western literature the greeks also

started having some fun

initiating the olympic games and then

going on to build big temples and

founding colonies all over the place

from

spain to the ukraine then you had

mathematicians like pythagoras and

philosophers like thales who predicted

an eclipse and klysthenes who formulated

a system of government known as

democracy in athens

you might be asking what magic is this

why did the greeks suddenly burst out in

unheard of barrages of brilliance that's

a very very good question

anyway while all this was going on a

shadow was approaching from the east

the persians by the 5th century bc the

accumulated persians had gobbled up a

colossal empire gulping down greek

regions in the process

and when the greeks here revolted

against foreign rule with support from

athens

and eritrea and burned the persian

regional capital the persians under king

darius quashed the rebellion and vowed

to invade greece and make it pay

persia at this point had the biggest

empire history had ever known and they

marched into greece and of course greece

had absolutely no chance and oh wait the

greeks won in a startling twist the

athenians and platians and the militis

routed the persians at the battle of

marathon and sent them packing one greek

even tried to pull a persian ship back

with his hands

ten years later the persians returned

this time with a much

much bigger army the multi-ethnic forces

swept in by land and sea and met with

ferocious resistance

most famously from leonidas and his 300

spartans and their allies at the battle

of thermopylae where for three days the

greeks held their ground against a force

at least

ten times their size meanwhile the wily

athenian thermistocles

scored a victory for the greek fleet at

salamis after tricking the persians into

some narrow straits to their destruction

when the greeks under spartan general

pofsanius

triumphed at the battle of platyar the

persian conquest was effectively stopped

and the jubilant confidence infected the

greek world

greece in the 5th century bc entered its

classical phase an age of cultural

scintillation the apex of it all was in

athens under pericles who sought to

beautify the city after the persians had

burned it and did so the parthenon that

sparkling doric temple to athena

crowning the acropolis proving the most

spectacular structural symbol of the age

greece's golden era birthed the

immeasurably influential philosopher

socrates who taught plato who taught

aristotle sculptors fashioned artworks

of astonishing skill we meet herodotus

known as the father of history and

hippocrates known as the father of

medicine meanwhile playwrights

entertained crowds and theaters with

their comedies and tragedies but athens

had attained great wealth and power and

other greek states were getting wary

especially sparta and of course the two

ended up at each other's throats enter

the peloponnesian war a devastating

conflict that eventually saw the

spartans victorious and athens

humiliated the thebans later enjoyed a

time of supremacy but then along came

macedon macedon or macedonia was the

northernmost

spot of the greek world but viewed as

something of a backwater the macedonians

spoke a greek dialect worshiped the

greek gods and competed in the olympics

which only greeks were allowed to do but

they didn't think much of the whole

democracy thing

and preferred the homeric warrior king

system of our old rugged friends the

mycenaeans macedon's ascent was the

result of an able king called philip

ii who reformed the macedonian army

subdued his enemies and unified most of

greece under his rule before being

assassinated and succeeded by his young

son

alexander alexander was even more

ambitious and ruthless than his father

and set off to punish persia for their

invasion of greece once and for all in

an extraordinary campaign which evinced

his military genius and after numerous

battles none of which he lost

he conquered the persian empire and

carved out a gigantic kingdom stretching

from egypt to india before dying in

babylon aged 32. while his reign was

short his legacy was not and the

language and culture of greece spread

through the eastern world alexander's

empire ended up split into different

bits

these two proving the strongest and the

city of alexandria in egypt

became the intellectual capital of the

western world for centuries but next

door waxed a ravenous beast

called rome and after a number of wars

the romans conquered greece in 146 bc

and over the next century snapped up the

other greek-run regions around the

mediterranean though subjugated the

culture of greece permeated rome and

educated and artistic romans constantly

looked to greece for inspiration it was

during roman rule in the first century

that a strange new religion called

christianity came to greece the apostle

paul himself preaching in athens and

founding churches across the land thanks

to alexander greek was the common

language of the eastern roman empire and

christianity could spread

very quickly and it did and the new

testament was originally written in

greek while the early church suffered

persecution it only grew the more and

eventually became the favored faith of

both the eastern and western roman

empire when western rome fell in 476 the

eastern empire including greece survived

the fall and would last another thousand

years this byzantine empire with its

glittering capital at constantinople was

strengthened by justinian the first

under whom it reached its peak in power

but it was surrounded by enemies and war

was the norm

while the 11th and 12th centuries saw

byzantine greece prosper quite a bit

there was simply too many people trying

to conquer it italians were pinching

islands

and the serbs snatched half the mainland

and then the turks came along when

constantinople finally fell to the

ottoman turks in 1453

greece soon followed the greeks did not

do very well under ottoman rule heavy

taxes discrimination

and having their children stolen to be

forcibly converted to islam and serve as

soldiers or civil servants when greek

monks had to build their monasteries

this far away from the ground you just

know something wasn't right the greek

orthodox church played a big part in

keeping the hopes of the greeks alive

and we hear about bishops

like the ones you fear leading revolts

he unfortunately was captured and flayed

alive

this was also the time of the rough

mountain-dwelling rebels the cleftis who

constantly harassed the turkish

authorities by the 18th century the

ottoman empire was no longer the

superpower it used to be and greek

intellectuals like avamandios

and rigas ferreros influenced by the

french enlightenment were opening

people's minds to new ideas and urging

revolution

in 1821 greece was set ablaze in a war

of independence a time of bravery and

bloodlust the greeks scored major

victories under leaders like theodoros

colocotronis who thrashed the turks at

their vanaikya greek women also joined

the fight with mando mavrogliano

and las garina bobolina donating their

wealth and commanding ships in the

struggle now greeks were utterly

ruthless to their enemies slaughtering

the thousands of turks captured

atripolizza but it was the turkish

atrocities against the greeks from the

tens of thousands butchered in here

to the massacres and beheadings at

misolangi that awoke the great powers

europe and the western world had already

been sympathetic to the greek cause but

now they decided to take

serious action this was very welcome as

the ottomans had enlisted the help of

egypt and things were not looking good

in 1827 the british russians and french

destroyed the ottoman navy at navarino

the greeks fought on and finally won

their freedom the country was in

shambles and recovery was slow but the

greeks were ardent on liberating their

brethren still in ottoman lands and

disappointment followed losses against

the turks in 1897. before this however

under prime minister kharilaos

improvements had been made and

modernization encouraged and greece

hosted the first

modern olympic games the greek sperethon

luis winning the marathon no doubt

thanks to his magnificent mustache

anyway under elepharios venezuela the

greek state managed to double in size

and population and fought on the winning

side in world war one after which the

greeks invaded turkey to regain the

lands their ancestors once had possessed

after making significant gains the

turkish offensive in 1922 forced the

greek withdrawal this was not a good

time as the turks had been busy with

their greek genocide

slaughtering hundreds of thousands of

greeks in their borders before the 1923

population exchange then there was the

great depression political upheaval and

world war

ii while greece sought neutrality the

italians under mussolini invaded in 1940

but the greeks surprised everyone by

holding them off and pushing them back

this compelled nazi germany to intervene

and their incursion proved

unstoppable though hitler himself was

impressed by the heroism of the greek

soldiers

greece suffered horribly in these years

of occupation factories farms and whole

villages were torched thousands starved

to death or were executed though the

greek resistance managed to kill many

thousands of enemy soldiers but before

the war was even over

another war began engulfing greece a

civil war which ended with the

government defeating the communists

ruined greece had to rebuild again and

did so and joined nato

and the economy grew but political

reform was stymied and a repressive

right-wing military regime

ruled from 1967 to 74 when mr karamanlis

restored democracy greece went on to

join the eu in 1981 and it began to

prosper but as noel coward once sang

there are bad times just around the

corner and they appeared in the wake of

the global financial crisis and greece

was hit very hard

only to be strained further by the

migrant crisis but greece which has

survived so much worse can confidently

open tomorrow and today has attained a

very high level of human development

with a high standard of living and is

one of the world's top tourist

destinations greece has given the world

so much in art and architecture and

literature and philosophy in science and

mathematics

and in sport the food's really good too

by the way so that's it for greece