A HISTORY OF GREECE

History of Greece

parthenon-acropolis, athens, greeceThe word Greek, according to Aristotle, comes from the word Graikoi which was the pre-historic name of the Hellenes. The people who we call the Greeks, and live in a country we call Greece, actually call themselves Hellenes and live in a country called Hellas. This is their story. This page started as an historical overview for my Greece Travel Guides and not meant to be a detailed account of Greek history though there are some areas where my interest in a topic enabled me to go into more detail. For those of you who want to know more about Greece and what makes it such a unique and fascinating country this should serve as an introduction. You can click on most photos in my history to see them full size. To return to this index page you can click on the History of Greece link at the top and the bottom of each page.

Matt Barrett's History of Greece Index

Minoan Mask from National Museum
Bronze and Iron Age

The Parthenon
The Golden Age


 Alexander the Great

Roman Agora
 The Roman Period

Archangel Michael
 The Byzantine Period


The Turkish Period

Lord Byron
Revolution of 1821


Venizelos/Smyrna

Greek Evzone
World War Two


Lest We Forget


Civil War


Post-War 

George Papadopoulos, leader of the 1967-74 Military Junta 
The Junta


Rebellion


Newest Democracy


Papandreou-Karamanlis 2


 Final Words


Greek Politics


Biographies


November 17 Terrorism

For a list of books I used to research this site and many more books about Greek history and culture as well as literature, cooking and travel see www.greektravel.com/books

More History from Matt's Greece Travel Guides

Historical Prints of Early 20th Century Athens

 Rembetika and Greek Popular Music

Greece in the Sixties
Photo Album

Greek Festivals and Holidays

A Short History of the Jews in Greece

The Acropolis of Athens

The Elgin Marbles

Was Columbus Greek?

Karaghiosi

Travel Links

Unlike a book where mistakes stay where they are until they are changed in the next printing or accepted as truth for the sake of convenience or indifference, a web-site can be changed fairly easily. So if you find events that did not happen the way I wrote them, or did not happen at all, or something important that I have missed then I would love to hear from you. I have tried to be as objective as possible however it is difficult not to see things through one's own prejudices. I imagine the left will find me too conservative, the right will find me too radical and the intellectuals will find me just plain dumb. I would love to hear from all of you. But keep it nice. Take a deep breath and write in a calm and sensible way since I tend not to read ravings and e-mails that begin with expletives.

Matt Barrett: matt@greecetravel.com