Today in Hellenic History.

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March 26 1821

Captain Panourgias and his men force the Ottomans to surrender at Salona (Amfissa).

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:thumbs: Bravo Paidia!

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March 25 717
Leo III the Isaurian is crowned emperor in Hagia Sophia. The intensive efforts of the new emperor to strengthen the defence of Constantinople against the invading Arabs risulted successfull. An important factor in the victory of the Greeks was the use of the so called "liquid fire"(Υγρό Πυρ, igró pir)

Byzantine ship using "liquid fire".

March 25 1896
On March 25, 1896, (Old Calendar) or April 6th, 1896 (New Calendar) a triple celebration began in the Greek capital. The first Modern Olympic Games were underway, while the 75th anniversary of the Declaration of Greek Independence and Easter Monday were all celebrated at one and the same time. This sporting, national and religious coincidence made the Games an unprecedented success.

March 25 1938
Official openings of the first Greek radio station in the intermediate frequency waves. The studio is located in the Zappeion Hall.The aerial is made by the German company Telefunken.

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March 28 1884
Angelos Sikelianos,poet and playwright,is born in Lefkada.Dies in Athens on 1951.
He is one of Greece's most important 20th-century lyric poets,he emphasized national history,religious symbolism,and universal harmony in poems such as "The Light-Shadowed", "Prologue to Life", "Mother of God", and "Delphic Utterance".His plays include "Sibylla", "Daedalus in Crete", "Christ in Rome", "The Death of Digenis" and "Asklepius".

March 28 1964
The Turkish government starts a wave of deportations against the Greeks of Constantinople, exploiting the climate of intensity that prevails in Cyprus. Above 10.000 Greeks will be forced to abandon Constantinople.

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March 29 1821
Athanasios Diakos raises the flag of the Greek Revolution in the town of Livadeia.On 1 April 1821, after three days of vicious house-by-house fighting,the town falls to the Greeks.
Later,after the Alamana battle,severely wounded,Athanasios Diakos is taken before Vryonis,who offers to make him an officer in the Ottoman army if he converts from Christianity to Islam. Diakos refuses the offer.The next day he is impaled.His last words are... "Εγώ Γραικός γεννήθηκα, Γραικός θε να πεθάνω" ("I was Born a Greek, I Shall Die a Greek").

The statue of Diakos at his birthplace,the village of Ano-Moussounitsa that was later renamed Athanasios Diakos in his honour.

March 29 1985
Christos Sartzetakis (born 6 April, 1929 - Thessaloniki) is elected by the parliament as President of the Hellenic Republic for one 5-year term, succeeding Constantine Karamanlis.
http://www.sartzetakis.gr/

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March 30 1822
Destruction of Chios from the Turkish troops.The Turkish massacre,which annihilated 5/6 of the 120,000 Greek inhabitants of the island,decimated the Mastichohoria,the mastic growing villages in the south of the island. It triggered enormous public outrage in Western Europe, as can be seen in the art of Delacroix, in the writing of Lord Byron and Victor Hugo.

March 30 1827
The National Assembly elects Ioannis Kapodistrias,with septennial term of office,as the first head of state of newly-liberated Greece, with the title of Kivernetis (Κυβερνήτης-Governor).

March 30 1841
The National Bank of Greece is founded.The first governor is Georgios Stavroy.

March 30 1844
Alexandros Mavrokordatos forms his third goverment.His government carries out the first parliamentary elections in the free Greek state.

March 30 1946
The town of Litochoro is attacked by left rebels.This attack is considered the first military action of the Greek Civil War.

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March 31 1947
The Dodecanese is formally ceded to Greece.

March 31 1982
Vangelis(Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou,born on March 29 1943 in Volos)wins the Academy Award for Original Music Score,for the movie Chariots of Fire.

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March 27 1821

Victorious battle in the straights Agios Athanasios of Mt. Lykaion. The Ottoman forces totally demolished.

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March 29 1941


Italian forces off the shores of Peloponessos are intercepted by combined British and Australian Royal Navies in the battle of Cape Matapan.

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March 30 1822

Turkish fleet arrives in Chios where over 40.000 Hellines are butchered, hanged, or tortured to death, over 50.000 enslaved and a mere 2000 managed to survive from a community that was once approx. 100.000.

One of the most well known paintings is that by Eugene Delacroix (1824) that depicts a Turkish officer on horseback attacking unarmed civilians.