0_Wizard
I've really wanted to visit Greece recently, especially Athens (the capital).
Athens is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki.
chosen_Greece_0
Greece
chosen_topic_0_Greece
Greece–Serbia relations
Greek–Serbian relations have traditionally been friendly due to cultural, religious and historical factors. Serbs and Greeks are followers of the Eastern Orthodox Church and were bound by alliance treaties and co-belligerence in wars since the Middle Ages. Friendly relations have played an important role in bilateral relations between the two nations, especially in modern history: during the revolutions against the Ottoman Empire, the Balkan Wars, the World Wars and Yugoslav wars. During the NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia, Greece was the only NATO member to condemn the actions and openly expressed its disapproval; polls revealed that 94% of the Greek population were completely opposed to the bombing.
History of modern Greece
The history of modern Greece covers the history of Greece from the recognition of its autonomy from the Ottoman Empire by the Great Powers (Great Britain, France, and Russia) in 1828, after the Greek War of Independence, to the present day. The Byzantine Empire had ruled most of the Greek-speaking world since late Antiquity, but experienced a decline as a result of Muslim Arab and Seljuk Turkish invasions and was fatally weakened by the sacking of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders in 1204. The establishment of Catholic Latin states on Greek soil, and the struggles of the Orthodox Byzantine Greeks against them, led to the emergence of a distinct Greek national identity.
Greek–Turkish relations
The relations between the Greek and the Turkish states have been marked by alternating periods of mutual hostility and reconciliation ever since Greece won its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832. Since then the two countries have faced each other in four major wars—the Greco-Turkish War (1897), the First Balkan War of 1912 to 1913, the First World War (1914 to 1918) and finally the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22). The latter was followed by the Greco-Turkish population exchange and a period of friendly relations in the 1930s and 1940s. Both countries entered NATO in 1952. Relations deteriorated again in the 1950s due to the Cyprus issue, the 1955 Istanbul pogrom and the expulsion of the Istanbul Greeks in the 1960s, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and subsequent military confrontations over the Aegean dispute.
Greek government-debt crisis
The Greek government-debt crisis (also known as the Greek Depression) is the sovereign debt crisis faced by Greece in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007–08. Widely known in the country as The Crisis (Greek: Η Κρίση), it reached the populace as a series of sudden reforms and austerity measures that led to impoverishment and loss of income and property, as well as a small-scale humanitarian crisis. The Greek crisis started in late 2009, triggered by the turmoil of the Great Recession, structural weaknesses in the Greek economy, and revelations that previous data on government debt levels and deficits had been undercounted by the Greek government.
Zakynthos
Zakynthos (, "Zákynthos" , ) or Zante (, "Tzánte" , ; from Venetian), is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the third largest of the Ionian Islands. Zakynthos is a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and its only municipality. It covers an area of and its coastline is roughly in length. The name, like all similar names ending in -nthos, is pre-Mycenaean or Pelasgian in origin. In Greek mythology the island was said to be named after Zakynthos, the son of a legendary Arcadian chief Dardanus. Zakynthos is a tourist destination, with an international airport served by charter flights from northern Europe.
Greece–Israel relations
Greek-Israeli relations refers to the bilateral relations between Greece and Israel. Relations between the two countries have been less warm in the late 20th century, however since 2008 they have become the strongest relations in the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel and Greece consider each other as their stronger collaborator in the aspects of military, intelligence, economy and culture. Both countries are part of the Energy Triangle which referred to the extraction of oil and gas from both Israel and Cyprus by 2015, which will be delivered to mainland Europe with a pipeline through Greece. The deterioration of Israel's relations with Turkey following the Gaza flotilla raid has heavily contributed to the strengthening of Greek-Israeli relations.
Christodoulos of Athens
Christodoulos (17 January 1939 – 28 January 2008) (, born "Christos Paraskevaidis, Χρήστος Παρασκευαΐδης") was Archbishop of Athens and All Greece and as such the primate of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece, from 1998 until his death, in 2008. Christodoulos was born in Xanthi, Thrace, Northern Greece in 1939. His civil name was Christos Paraskevaidis. When he was two years old, his family moved to Athens to escape German and Bulgarian occupation of the area during World War II. His father subsequently returned to Xanthi following the war and ran a successful bid for mayor. Christodoulos attended high school at the Roman Catholic Marist Leonteion Lyceum of Athens.