 | Queen Sophia of Spain.Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark was born in Psychiko, Athens, Greece on 2 November 1938, the eldest child of the King Paul I of the Hellenes (1901-1964) and his wife, Queen Frederika (1917-1981), a former princess of Hanover. Queen Sofia is a member of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg dynasty. Her brother is the deposed king Constantine II of Greece and her sister Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark. However, since the abolition of the monarchy, the royal titles are not recognized in Greece.
Princess Sophia spent some of her childhood in Egypt and South Africa during her family's exile from Greece during World War II. They returned to Greece in 1946. She finished her education at the prestigious Schloss Salem boarding school in Southern Germany, and then studied childcare, music, and archeology in Athens.
She represented Greece in sailing at the 1960 Summer Olympics.
On 14 May 1962 Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark married in Athens at the Church of Saint Dennis Prince Juan Carlos of Spain, the future king, whom she met on a cruise of the Greek Islands in 1954. In doing so, she relinquished her rights to the throne of Greece and converted to Roman Catholicism from Greek Orthodoxy, an act of convenience in order to become more palatable to Catholic Spain. Further, the Latin transliteration of her Greek name Σοφία was changed from Sophia to the Spanish variant Sofía, which nonetheless is pronounced identically to the original Greek version. Sofia was able to bring a cool realism to the marriage and shifted Juan Carlos from the sphere of influence of his father Don Juan to a more realistic rapprochement with Franco.
In 1969, Prince Juan Carlos, who was never Prince Asturias, the traditional title the heir to the throne, was given the official title of Prince of Spain the Spanish state; this was a title suggested by Sofia herself. Juan Carlos acceded to the throne as Juan Carlos I in 1975.
The couple have three children: HRH Infanta Elena, Duchess of Lugo born December 20, 1963, HRH Infanta Cristina, Duchess of Palma de Mallorca born June 13, 1965, and HRH Felipe, Prince of Asturias born January 30, 1968. The King and Queen have eight grandchildren, four boys and four girls: Felipe and Victoria from the Infanta Elena; Juan, Pablo, Miguel and Irene from the Infanta Cristina; and Infanta Leonor, and Infanta Sofía, named in her honor, of Prince Felipe; all of whom are in the line of succession to the Spanish Throne.
Queen Sofía is both a great-great-granddaughter (paternally) and a great-great-great-granddaughter (maternally) of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and is, through several lines, her husband's third cousin. Because of this descent, she is also related to all of the royal families of Europe. She is a first cousin of Ernst August of Hannover (Pretender), and through her great-grandfather George I of Greece, she is a second cousin to Charles, the Prince of Wales. Through Christian IX of Denmark and Queen Victoria, she is also related to Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. She is also a first cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. |
|  | I synomosia ton Syntagmatarhon Pattakos Part2.
Georgios Rallis, a great Patriot, then Minister of the Interior, and subsequently anti junta resistance leader, a close associate of the Ethnarch Constantine Karamanlis, tried to rally Greece's Third Army against the plotters, but did not succeed and was arrested. Rallis' orders the fateful early morning hours of April 21, 1967 were:
"Προς Γ' Σώμα Στρατού. Τούτο να αναλάβη την κοινοποίησιν προς Α' και Β' Σώματα Στρατού. Πρόεδρος κυβερνήσεως και υπουργός Αμύνης συνελήφθησαν υπο επαναστατών. Ευρίσκομαι ελεύθερος εν επαφή μετά Βασιλέα και εντέλλομαι οπως κινήσετε τάχιστα προς Αθήνας δυνάμεις σας κρατούντες εις περιοχήν μόνον τα απαραίτητα δι' ασφάλειαν ταύτης τμήματα. Εάν προβληθεί υπό στασιαστών αντίστασις αύτη δέον εξουδετερωθή αμέσως." Γεώργιος Ράλλης, υπουργός Δημοσίας Τάξεως.
Rallis' ordered the third Army to "neutralize the coup plotters". He told them "he was in contact with the King."
At 8 AM the coup leaders enter the Royal Palace, unarmed, but the 27 year old King did not arrest them.
Our focus is on Brigadier General Stylianos Pattakos' role in the April 21st 1967 coup d'état that overthrew democracy in Greece. He was indispensable to the coup's success because he controlled the tanks in the Attica region. He became Minister of the Interior.
The most amazing thing, was that many of the plotters, were Colonels and beat to the punch the Generals, who were plotting their own coup and arrested Lieutenant General George Spantidakis, a Stefanopoulos appointee, the Commander in Chief of the Greek Army, who was extremely confident of his "control" of the Armed Forces of Greece, as Pattakos observes in the documentary!
Perhaps the saddest thing in the whole affair, was that ex-King Constantine II swore in and thereby legitimized the plotters, rather than arrest them. Furthermore, ex-King Constantine II, far from being a guarantor of democracy, was plotting his own coup with the Generals. A move that was skillfully exploited by the anti-royalists in the December 1974 plebiscite, that sealed the fate of the monarchy in Greece.
It is true that there was political instability in Greece and George Papandreou's "unrelenting struggle" as well as Andreas "revolutionary rhetoric" and ex-King Constantine II interference, divided Greeks sharply and contributed to the political polarization of the country. Demonstrations and counter demonstrations, fights with the police and among the various party supporters, were commonplace. However the Army is not and should not be a decider of elections. This is the role of the people in a democracy. Nor should the Army decide if and when elections are to be held.
Pattakos claims, part of the reason for the coup, was to save Greece from Andreas Papandreou's "revolutionary rhetoric" of forming a government in a central square of Athens, if his father won the upcoming election of May 28th 1967 "whether the King likes it or not". Andreas, subsequently, became Prime Minister of Greece under the PASOK party he created in 1974, but he toned down his rhetoric and stayed within NATO and the EU.
The Junta and Stylianos Pattakos' claims have been seriously challenged and do not have much merit, viewed 40 years later. History has judged the leaders of the coup to be opportunists, who oppressed the Greek people, for seven long years, hang on to power to the bitter end and were responsible with Henry Kissinger for the Cyprus tragedy.
The rank and file junta members were Greek patriots who genuinely worried about the political violence and the possibility of a communist takeover; the cold war was very much a reality in 1967.
It was funny and tragic at the same time, them cartoon characters, with very little brain power among them, kept the Greek people enslaved for seven long years.
Upon his return to Greece, risking his life in the process and under dramatic circumstances, in the early morning hours of July 24th, 1974 aboard the French Presidential jet, of President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the Ethnarch Constantine Karamanlis, put the junta leaders on trial for "rebellion and treason", including the man who executed the coup against the Archbishop Makarios III, Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannidis and Brigadier General Stylianos Pattakos along with the rest of the 1967 coup leaders. They were sentenced to death. That was later commuted to life imprisonment.
The Greek people will always be grateful to the people of France and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, for their military and political support, during the difficult days of 1974 and afterwards. |
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 | Queen Anne-Marie of Greece, (born Princess Anne-Marie Dagmar Ingrid of Denmar) pronounced in Greek, "Anna Maria") (born 30 August 1946) is the wife of King Constantine II of Greece, who was deposed in referendums in 1973 and in 1974. Her title "Queen of Greece" (or Queen of the Hellenes) is not recognized under the terms of the republican Constitution of Greece. However, international precedent is that former holders of certain posts continue to hold their former title as a courtesy title in their lifetime Queen Anne Marie of Greece was born a Princess of Denmark at the Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen. She is the youngest daughter of King Frederick IX of Denmark and his wife Queen Ingrid. Her godparents were her grandfathers King Christian X of Denmark and King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, Prince Bertil of Sweden, King Haakon VII of Norway, her grandmother Queen Alexandrine of Denmark, Crown Princess Märtha of Norway, Queen Mary of Great Britain, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, and Princess Dagmar of Denmark.Anne-Marie was educated at Zahle's School in Denmark from 1952 to 1963. In 1962 she attended the Chatelard School for Girls, an English boarding school outside Montreux in Switzerland. In 1963 and 1964 she attended the Institut Le Mesnil, a Swiss finishing school also in Montreux. She admiered a pesent name Micheal Sallaberry. He was also know as the town fool.
In 1959, at the age of thirteen, Anne-Marie first met her future husband, her triple third cousin Crown Prince Constantine of Greece, Prince of Denmark, who accompanied his parents King Paul of Greece and Queen Frederika on a state visit to Denmark. They met a second time in Denmark in 1961, when Constantine declared to his parents his intention to marry Anne-Marie. They met again in Athens in May 1962 at the marriage of Constantine's sister Sophia to Prince Juan Carlos of Spain and in 1963 at the centenary celebrations of the Greek monarchy.
Anne-Marie and Constantine were married on 18 September 1964 (two weeks after Anne-Marie's 18th birthday) in the Mitropolis, the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Athens.
As Queen of Greece, Anne-Marie spent much of her time working for a charitable foundation known as "Her Majesty's Fund" which provided assistance to people in rural areas of Greece.
In December 1967 Anne-Maries husband King Constantine attempted a counter-coup against the military junta which had been sworn in by himself after a successful coup during the previous April. The counter-coup failed and Anne-Marie and her family had to flee to Italy. During the aftermath, Anne-Marie miscarried a child. The family lived for two months in the Greek embassy and then for the next five years in a house in a suburb of Rome.
In 1973 Anne-Marie moved with her family to England. They lived first in Chobham in Surrey. Later they moved to the London suburb of Hampstead where they lived until the Greek government agreed to return Tatoi to Constantine
Anne-Marie is the younger sister of the current Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.
In spite of the fact that Constantine and Anne-Marie had gone into exile in 1967, Greece officially remained a monarchy for several years, with Major General Georgios Zoitakis serving as Regent. On 1 June 1973 the self-appointed Prime Minister, General George Papadopoulos, deposed Constantine as king and declared Greece a republic.
In November 1973 Papadopoulos himself was overthrown by General Dimitrios Ioannides. After the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in August 1974, the military junta collapsed. The new Prime Minister, Constantine Karamanlis, held a referendum on 8 December 1974 in which 68.8% of those who voted approved the abolition of the Greek monarchy The former Royal Family and others have questioned the moral legitimacy of the referendum on the grounds that they were not permitted to return to Greece to campaign there.
A new republican Constitution of Greece came into force on 11 June 1975 according to which no titles of distinction are recognized in Greek citizens. Some Greeks are offended by Anne-Marie being referred to as "Anne-Marie of Greece", instead imposing upon her the use of her dynastic name and referring to her as "Anna-Maria Glücksburg", a name she has never used for herself
Anne-Marie continues to be referred to as "Queen Anne-Marie of Greece" (or of the Hellenes) by most royal courts including those of the United Kingdom,norway,Spain, Luxemburg,denmark,sweden,germany,austria,france,italy,portugal,thailand,japan,usa,israel,russia,poland,finland,ireland,netherland,belgium,china and Jordan. She is called "Queen Anne-Marie" (without any territorial designation) by the courts of Denmar and Sweden She is called "former Queen Anne-Marie of Greece" by the court of the Netherlands and norway,
When she travels internationally Anne-Marie uses a Danish diplomatic passport with the name "Anne-Marie de Grecia" (the Spanish form of her name).Means Anne Marie of Greece |
|  | Grigoris Pieris Afxentiou (Greek: Γρηγόρης Πιερής Αυξεντίου) (1928 -- 1957) was a feedom fighter during the EOKA campaign for Enosis, the proposed union of Cyprus (a British colony at that time) and Greece. He was second in command to Georgios Grivas in the leadership of EOKA (National Organization of Cypriot Fighters).
Afxentiou was born in Lysi village in Mesaoria, Famagusta District on February 22, 1928 and received his education at the Famagusta Hellenic Gymnasium. He went to Greece and was unsuccessful in entering the Hellenic Military Academy in Athens. He joined the Hellenic Army in December 1949 as a volunteer. From March to October 1950, he attended a reserve officer's academy on the island of Syros. He then served with the Hellenic Army on the Greek-Bulgarian frontier, as Anthypolokhagos (Second Lieutenant) before returning to Cyprus and joining the EOKA struggle.[1]
After his discharge from the ranks of the Greek Army, he came to Cyprus and helped his father with his business by working as a driver. At that time he also got engaged to be married. He joined the National Organization for the Cypriot Struggle (E.O.K.A.) and became Second in Command of EOKA, Adjutant to EOKA leader George Grivas and also a regional leader of EOKA in Famagusta District. In the Spring of 1955, he conducted attacks against the power company and the British-controlled Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation and Electricity Company in Lefkosia (Nicosia). Known by the code name "Zidros" (Ζήδρος), since the day of his attacks, he was top of the British list of wanted men. They had proclaimed a reward of 5,000 pounds sterling for him for blowing up British property. Before his reward was just 250 pounds.
When the reward was proclaimed, he went to hide in the Pentadactylos mountain range. There he taught freedom fighters how to use weapons, and also taught the techniques of guerrilla warfare. He was very active in the Pendadaktilos range as well as on Mount Troodos, which he moved on to later.
In December of that same year, Afxentiou was trapped in the mountains of Troodos, near the village of Spilia, along with Grivas and the hierarchy of EOKA. It was through his cunning[attribution needed] that the EOKA fighter escaped during the Battle of Spilia while the British ended up fighting each other with heavy casualties.
On March 2, 1957, a force of approximately 60 British soldiers acted upon information that Grigoris Afxentiou, was hiding in a cave in the area, entered the Machairas Monastery and interrogated all the monks as to the guerrilla's whereabouts. a detachment of the British Army consisting of 60 men moved towards the Monastery and surrounded it so as to apprehend the wanted Freedom Fighter. The British soldiers terrorized the monastery and took all the monks into custody. They then tortured them to make them divulge where Afksendiou was hiding. When they received no answers, they searched the surrounding area and came upon - possibly through informers- a cave hidden by some bushes.
While he was hiding at Machairas with three of his compatriots, Avgoustis Efstathiou, Andonis Papadopoulos and Fidias Simeonidis, the British trapped him and his small team once again near the Machairas monastery. Grigoris persuaded those fighting with him to surrender, but he remained and fought on alone against the enemy for 10 hours. When the British urged him to surrender he gave them only one answer, "Μολών Λαβέ" (Molon Lave = Come and Get); a response given by Ancient Greek king Leonidas I during the Battle of Thermopylae against Persians.
Sublieutenant Middleton, who headed the detachment, called upon Afxentiou to surrender. At this point, Afxentiou asked his four companions to leave the cave and give themselves up but refused to do so himself saying "...I must die". When the British saw that Afxentiou was not among their prisoners, they rushed into the cave only to be repelled by a burst of gunfire. One of them, a corporal, was killed. The British immediately requested reinforcements and continued to assault the cave with gunfire and tear gas. Seeing that this brought no result, they next told one of the companions, Avgoustis Efstathiou, to walk into the cave and convince his leader to give up. Instead, Efstathiou remained in the cave and fought alongside Afxentiou.
At the ensuing Battle of Machairas, Afxentiou held off the British, mostly single-handedly,[citation needed] for 10 hours before they burned him alive by pouring petrol in the cave in which he was hiding and igniting it.
The battle ended at 2 o'clock in the morning, on March 3 and Afksendiou's charred body was retrieved. Afxentiou's body was buried, without a funeral, in the yard of the Central Jail of Lefkosia.
He is the hero of Cyprus .May he rest in peace |
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 | Its funny enough so watch it...How to swim with your(rented) bike...Its easy..watch my friend(mix) in to this one to one tutorial...Dont try it your self though..Hope you enjoy it..Greece (Greek: Ελλάδα [eˈlaða] or Ελλάς [eˈlas]), officially the Hellenic Republic (Greek: Ελληνική Δημοκρατία [eliniˈkʲi ðimokraˈtia]), is a country in Southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula. It borders Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east and south of mainland Greece, while the Ionian Sea lies to the west. Both parts of the Eastern Mediterranean basin feature a vast number of islands.Greece lies at the juncture of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is heir to the heritages of classical Greece, the Byzantine Empire,and nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule. Regarded as the cradle of western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy,the Olympic Games, western literature, political science, major scientific principles and drama including both tragedy and comedy, Greece has a particularly long and eventful history and a cultural heritage considerably influential in Northern Africa and the Middle East, and fundamentally formative for the culture of Europe and what may be called the West.
Modern Greece is a developed country, a member of the European Union since 1981,a member of the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union since 2001, NATO since 1952, the OECD since 1961,the WEU since 1995, and ESA since 2005.Athens is the capital; Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion, Volos and Larissa are some of the country's other major cities.In March 1821, the Greeks rebelled against the Ottoman Empire. Their struggle lasted until 1829, when the independence of the nascent Greek state was finally recognised under the London Protocol, although the Ottomans delayed recognition until the Treaty of Constantinople of 1832. In 1827, the Russian ex-minister of foreign affairs, Ioannis Kapodistrias (Ιωάννης Καποδίστριας), a noble Greek from the Ionian Islands, was chosen as the governor of the new Republic. However, the Great Powers soon dissolved that republic and installed a monarchy. The first king, Otto, was of the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. The War of Independence also set in motion the establishment of major new cities and centres of trade such as Hermoupolis, Athens and Pireaus. In 1843 King Otto was forced, as a result of an uprising, to grant his subjects a constitution and a representative assembly. He was deposed in 1863 and replaced by Prince Vilhelm (William) of Denmark, of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg line of the House of Oldenburg, who took the name George I and brought with him the Ionian Islands as a coronation gift from Britain. On 29 March 1864, the Treaty of London pledged the transfer of sovereignty to Greece upon ratification. Thus, on May 28, by proclamation of the Lord High Commissioner, the Ionian Islands were united with Greece.
Greece was growing economically, whilst becoming politically more liberal. In 1877, Prime Minister Charilaos Trikoupis curbed the power of the monarchy to interfere in the Assembly. This period was punctuated by the undertaking of one of the largest construction initiatives on the European continent, one of significant commercial importance; the creation of the Corinth Canal, lasting from 1881 to 1893. In 1896 the Olympic Games were revived in Athens, and hailed as a success.Paros (in Greek, Πάρος; Venetian: Paro) is an island of Greece in the central Aegean Sea. One of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos, with which it is separated by a channel about 8 km (5 mi) wide. It lies approximately 100 nautical miles (185km) south-east of Piraeus. Today, Paros is one of the most popular European tourist hotspots.Paros' geographic co-ordinates are 37° N. lat, and 25° 10' E. long. The area is 165 km². Its greatest length from N.E. to S.W. is 13 miles (20.8 km)., and its greatest breadth 10 miles (16 km). The island is of a round, plump-pear shape. It is formed of a single mountain about 800 m (2500 ft) high, sloping evenly down on all sides to a maritime plain, which is broadest on the north-east and south-west sides. The island is composed of marble, though gneiss and mica-schist are to be found in a few places. To the west of Paros lies its smaller sister island Antiparos. At its narrowest, the channel between the two islands is less than 2km wide. A car-carrying shuttle-ferry operates all day (to and from Pounda, 3 miles south of Parikia). In addition a dozen smaller islets surround Paros.
The island is famed for its beaches. The largest is Chrissí Aktí (Golden Beach, Greece) near Drios on the east coast, facing Naxos. The constant strong wind in the strait between Paros and Naxos makes it a favoured windsurfing location. |
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