History of Crete
Based on this, it is thought that Crete was inhabited from about 130,000 years ago, in the Lower Paleolithic,[9] perhaps not continuously, with a Neolithic farming culture from the 7th millennium BC onwards.
The sparse animal bones contain the above-mentioned domestic species as well as deer, badger, marten and mouse: the extinction of the local megafauna had not left much game behind.
In the late 4th century BC, the aristocratic order began to collapse due to endemic infighting among the elite, and Crete's economy was weakened by prolonged wars between city states.
After a ferocious three-year campaign, Crete was conquered by the Roman army in 69 BCE, earning the commander Metellus the agnomen "Creticus".
Further annexations by Rome, in particular of the Kingdom of Pontus by Pompey, brought all of Anatolia under Roman control, except for the southeastern frontier with the Parthian Empire, which remained unstable for centuries, causing a series of military conflicts that culminated in the Roman–Parthian Wars (54 BCE – 217 CE).
Another major Cretan literary figures were Marcus Musurus (1470–1517), Nicholas Kalliakis (1645–1707), Andreas Musalus (1665–1721), and other Greek scholars and philosophers who flourished in Italy in the 15–17th centuries.
The painter Domenicos Theotocopoulos, better known as El Greco, was born in Crete in this period and was trained in Byzantine iconography before moving to Italy and later, Spain.
Sultan Mahmud II granted rule over Crete to Egypt's ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha in exchange for his military support.
The Ottoman Grand Vizier A'ali Pasha personally assumed control of the Ottoman forces and launched a methodical campaign to retake the rural districts, which was combined with promises of political concessions, notably by the introduction of an Organic Law, which gave the Cretan Christians equal (in practice, because of their superior numbers, majority) control of local administration.
During the Congress of Berlin in the summer of 1878, there was a further rebellion, which was halted quickly by the intervention of the British and the adaptation of the 1867-8 Organic Law into a constitutional settlement known as the Pact of Halepa.
The International Squadron bombarded Cretan insurgents, placed sailors and marines ashore, and instituted a blockade of Crete and key ports in Greece, bringing organized combat on the island to an end by late March 1897.
In December, the Greek flag was raised at the Firkas fortress in Chania, with Eleftherios Venizelos and King Constantine in attendance, and Crete was unified with mainland Greece.
In 1910 Venizelos transferred his career to Athens, quickly became the dominant figure on the political scene and in 1912, after careful preparations for a military alliance against the Ottoman Empire with Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria, allowed Cretan deputies to take their place in the Greek Parliament.
Ottoman Empire was effectively defeated in the ensuing war and were forced out of the Balkans and Thrace by the Alliance, except for the borders which Turkey continues to hold to this day.
[24] The priority of the United Kingdom was to prevent Crete from falling into enemy hands, because the island could be used to defend Egypt, the Suez Canal and the route to India.
After a fierce and bloody conflict between Nazi Germany and the Allies (United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Greece) that lasted ten days (between the 20 and 31 May 1941), the island fell to the Germans.
In September 1943, a memorable battle between the troops of occupation resistance fighters led by "Kapetan" Manolis Bandouvas in the region of Syme resulted in the deaths of eighty-three German soldiers and another thirteen were taken as prisoners.
Following VE Day British SOE officer Dennis Ciclitira arranged for Generalmajor Hans-Georg Benthack to formally surrender all German forces on the island to Major-General Colin Callander.
[28] On May 9, 1945, Benthack signed an unconditional surrender at the Villa Ariadne at Knossos to Callander, effective "10 o'clock Greenwich Mean Time on the tenth day of May 1945"[29] In the aftermath of the Dekemvriana in Athens, Cretan leftists were targeted by the right wing paramilitary organization National Organization of Rethymno (EOR), which engaged in attacks in the villages of Koxare and Melampes, as well as Rethymno in January 1945.
The Cretan branch of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) was well aware that the island was unsuitable for a long scale insurgency due to its isolation from the mainland and the popularity of Venizelism and conservative politics among its population.
This was followed with the mass arming of right leaning villagers and creation of the first Cretan MAY [el] units which were led by Bandouvas in Heraklion and "Kapetan" Gyparis in Chania.
Encouraged by orders from the central organization in Athens, KKE launched an insurgency in Crete; marking the beginning of the Greek Civil War on the island.
Commander Giannis Podias was killed and decapitated, the few surviving members of the unit managed to join the rest of DSE in Lefka Ori.
In the summer of 1947 DSE raided the Maleme Airport, looting its warehouses and abducting 100 aircraftmen of the Royal Hellenic Air Force, 12 of whom joined the rebels.
DSE abducted the depot's guards, looted the warehouse and set it aflame; resulting in a big explosion that led to the mobilization of government troops across the island.
This solved supply shortages only temporarily and the communists struggled to enforce discipline on their recruits or dislodge the mountain bandits residing in the areas under their nominal control.
In the autumn of 1947, the Greek government offered generous amnesty terms to Cretan DSE fighters and mountain bandits, many of whom opted to abandon armed struggle or even defect to the nationalists.
The insurgency in Crete gradually withered away, with the last two hold outs surrendering in 1974, 25 years after the conclusion of the war in mainland Greece.
The peaceful living and contact with a developed intellectual and cultural people were the factors that contributed to the cultivation of education and literature and the emergence of remarkable literary production.
As a result of plagues of the Black Death, many Cretans migrated overseas during difficult periods on the island, some acquiring great fortune abroad, such as Constantine Corniaktos[32] (c. 1517–1603) who became one of the richest people in Eastern Europe.
