The Helladic culture is the better known part of the Bronze Age on the southern Greek Mainland and has been subdivided into three stages using chronological and cultural criteria: the Early (3200-2100 BC), the Middle (2100-1550 BC) and the Late Bronze Age (1550-1050 BC), also known as Early Helladic, Middle Helladic and Late Helladic.
The Geometric period was a time of startling innovation and transformation in Greek society. The population dramatically increased and proto-urban life re-emerged, bringing with it overcrowding and political tensions. The Greeks moved to new lands to the east and west where they founded commercial trading posts and colonies.
The Greek Archaic Period (c. 800- 479 BCE) started from what can only be termed uncertainty, and ended with the Persians being ejected from Greece for good after the battles of Plataea and Mykale in 479 BCE. In the Archaic Period there were vast changes in Greek language, society, art, architecture, and politics. These changes occurred due to the increasing population of Greece and its increasing amount trade, which in turn led to colonization and a new age of intellectual ideas, the most important of which (at least to the modern Western World) was Democracy. This would then fuel, in a rather circular way, more cultural changes
The term “classical Greece” refers to the period between the Persian Wars at the beginning of the fifth century B.C. and the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. The classical period was an era of war and conflict—first between the Greeks and the Persians, then between the Athenians and the Spartans—but it was also an era of unprecedented political and cultural achievement. Besides the Parthenon and Greek tragedy, classical Greece brought us the historian Herodotus, the physician Hippokrates and the philosopher Socrates. It also brought us the political reforms that are ancient Greece’s most enduring contribution to the modern world: the system known as demokratia, or “rule by the people.”
The Hellenistic period covers the period of ancient Greek (Hellenic) history and Mediterranean history between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the subsequent conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt the following year.
Life in Greece continued under the Roman Empire much the same as it had previously. Roman culture was highly influenced by the Greeks; as Horace said, Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit. ("Captive Greece captured her rude conqueror".) The epics of Homer inspired the Aeneid of Virgil, and authors such as Seneca the younger wrote using Greek styles. While some Roman nobles regarded the Greeks as backwards and petty, many others embraced Greek literature and philosophy. The Greek language became a favorite of the educated and elite in Rome, such as Scipio Africanus, who tended to study philosophy and regard Greek culture and science as an example to be followed
Early Byzantine Period In 330 A.D., the first Christian ruler of the Roman empire, Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) (26.229), transferred the ancient imperial capital from Rome to the city of Byzantion located on the easternmost territory of the European continent, at a major intersection of east-west trade. The emperor renamed this ancient port city Constantinople (“the city of Constantine”) in his own honor (detail, 17.190.1673–1712); it was also called the “New Rome,
Middle Byzantine Period In the early Middle Byzantine era the Empire was attacked both by old enemies (Persians, Lombards, Avars, Slavs) and by peoples appearing for the first time in history, the Arabs and the Bulgars. Enemy attacks in this period were not localized to border areas but extended well beyond, even threatening the capital itself. At the same time, the attacks were no longer intermittent or ephemeral in character but took the form of permanent settlements of peoples that transformed into new states, hostile to Byzantium.
The Late Byzantine Period The Late Byzantine Period was set in the 11th century, when radical changes happened in the internal zone of the Empire (administration, justice, economy, army) as well as in the territorial status quo. In spite of all that, the year 1204 was chosen to be the beginning of the Late Byzantine period, when probably the most important event for the Empire occurred. Constantinople, the centre of the Empire, was lost for the Byzantine people for the first time, and the Byzantine Empire was conquered by Latin crusaders and would be replaced by a new Latin one, for 57 years. In addition, the period of Latin occupation decisively influenced the Empire's internal development, as new elements of feudality entered all aspects of Byzantine life. After the gradual weakening of the structures of the Byzantine state and the reduction of its land due to Turkish invasions, came the fall of the Byzantine Empire, at the hands of the Ottomans, in 1453, when the Byzantine period is considered to have ended.
From 1453 with the fall of Constantinople until the revolution in 1821 Greece is under the rule of the Ottoman Turks who control the entire middle east, and the Balkans as far as the gates of Vienna. The Ottomans are Seljuk Turks, a tribe from Central Asia who appeared in the area of Anatolia in the 11th century.
The Expansion of the Greek State I am happy to announce to you that today, on the seventh anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest, a peace treaty with Turkey has been signed, the treaty through which the major Allied Powers transfer to Greece the rule over Western Thrace, which had been ceded to them by Bulgaria after the Treaty of Neuilly, and the treaty with Italy, through which the Dodecanese islands are transferred to us. Since the job which we carry out amidst so many difficulties is crowned by such a success, I have the duty to express to my fellow citizens my deep gratitude for the constant confidence with which I have been invested for so many years, thus rendering possible the national triumphs which we are celebrating today. The self-denial, the self-sacrifice, the valour, the endurance of all the people when confronting all danger rather than go back on the word he has given and be unfaithful to his national traditions, add glorious pages to our long national history, for which our generation has every right to be proud of. My own pride is that I had the highest honour to lead a people with such intense feelings, able to commit such ingenious deeds, provided they are motivated by what is good and fair. VENIZELOS
Greece 1923-1940 The inter-war period is a period overshadowed by the First World War and characterized by changes and reclassifications that had a fertile outcome in the field of culture. There were new manners, new artistic creations, and an altogether new vision of man himself emerged. In Greece the Asia Minor Catastrophe was the culminating event that dramatically transformed the geographic, demographic and ideological map. The tragedy of thousands of people turned into refugees redefined not only their living conditions but the way in which they and those who received them perceived reality
Greece 1940-1945 The Battle of Greece took a total of 216 days and can be divided into three phases; starting with the initial defence of the homeland (28/10/40 to 13/11/40), it moved on to the impetuous counter-offensive which led to the occupation of important cities and other locations in North Epirus (14/11/40 to 28/12/49), and culminated in an even deeper advance into Albanian territory with the crushing of the notorious 'spring attack' by the Italians (29/12/40 to 5/4/41). The overall result was the immobilization of 27 Italian divisions in Albania by 16 Greek ones and the expansion of the Greek frontiers by 60 kilometres into Albanian territory, an event construed as the liberation of Greek territories in North Epirus
The Metapolitefsi (Greek: Μεταπολίτευση, translated as "polity/regime change") was a period in modern Greek history after the fall of the military junta of 1967–74 that includes the transitional period from the fall of the dictatorship to the 1974 legislative elections and the democratic period immediately after these elections. The long course towards the metapolitefsi began with the disputed liberalisation plan of Georgios Papadopoulos, the head of the military dictatorship. This process was opposed by prominent politicians, such as Panagiotis Kanellopoulos and Stephanos Stephanopoulos. Papadopoulos's plan was halted with the Athens Polytechnic uprising, a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the military junta, and the counter coup staged by Dimitrios Ioannides. Ioannides's failed coup d'état against the elected president of Cyprus, Makarios III, and the subsequent Turkish invasion resulted in the fall of the dictatorship and the appointment of an interim government, known as the "national unity government", led by former prime minister Konstantinos Karamanlis. Karamanlis legalised the Communist Party (KKE) and founded New Democracy, a center-right party which won by a landslide the elections of 1974 (the first elections in Greece after the fall of the junta).