Forbes and Spratt, 19th century travellers over Ottoman Crete, offer the derivation Eis ten Etera > Sitera > Sidero.

The latter city is an MSS or other-author variant of Itanos in the anonymous Stadiasmus Maris Magni, an ancient periplus ("sail around," a list of coastal ports, here on the shores of the mare magnum, the Mediterranean) published by Karl Müller in Geographi Graeci Minores.

The line fits the northeast promontory fairly well except for Minoa harbor, which by the coordinates dives to the south, so to speak.

The Republic of Venice (about 1000 - 1797) involved itself in Cretan affairs when it purchased Crete from Boniface I, Marquis of Montferrat, who had been awarded it as his share of the spoils from the Fourth Crusade, which sacked Constantinople in 1204.

[8] When the insurgency began to negotiate with the Genoese for a change in masters, the Venetians suppressed them in 1364, save for a remnant that fought on in the mountains under the flag of a Constantinople unable to do much of anything else.

Acquiring the absolution of the Pope and with the assistance of Turkish troops The Venetians quelled the last of the rebellion in 1368, banishing the rebellious families from Crete.

The Ottoman Empire began under Osman I, a successful bey of the Kayi tribe, who been able to unite the Oghuz Turks gradually infiltrating into Anatolia from the northeast.

Rule of the beylik (the sultanship) descended to Mehmed the Conqueror in 1444, then a teen-ager (a striking parallel to Alexander the Great).

Constantine died leading an infantry charge at the palace, but it is said an angel turned him to marble and hid him beneath the city awaiting God's signal to rise and fight again.

Once it is identified and its position is read on the chart, a few bearings on the light tells the navigator exactly where the ship is; however, modern-day use of GPS may make this older procedure unnecessary.

In historical geology the eastern Mediterranean submarine topography is the result of two main crustal movements: the collision of the African Plate in its northward drifting with the Eurasian Plate in the vicinity of northern Greece, uplifting the Hellenic arc on the north side of the Hellenic Trench, and the subsequent rotational back-arc extension pushing the arc southward and rotating it CW thinning the crust north of it into a sea (Aegean) in which volcanoes have broken through the thinned crust (Cyclades).

Water was observed to flow in over the Gibraltar sill and from the Black Sea and rivers, but none ever seemed to exit, leading hydrologists to suppose that the evaporation rate was so high as to create a sink.

Similarly the Sea of Crete receiving Atlantic surface water through the straits turns it into a subsurface reservoir of cool, dense water, rich in nutrients, which feeds the eastern Mediterranean and is much loved by deep-water species, such as the giant squid, and diving Cetaceans, such as the sperm whale.

The Mediterranean is not a sink, it is a source of deep, nutritious water, hence the presence of deep-water species around Cape Sidero.

[14] The waters of the strait do not break directly on the shoreline; there are always bays to consider; albeit most have beaches of fine sand well-frequented by the population.

Harbors navigable to ocean-going ships were only to be found at a few locations, where larger cities with ports came into existence and persisted.

[16] Due to its unspoiled character and a wealth of natural and historical assets, northeast Crete in modern times has been a target for developers, who wish to build hotels, residences, and recreational centers such as golf courses.

As this development would totally alter the content of its ecology, and destroy the historical sites, a number of protective agencies, foreign and domestic, have taken an interest in eastern Crete in general, the Itanos promontory with Cape Sidero in particular.

This interest, supported by the government, has resulted in the establishment of a number of overlapping reservations, or parks, each aimed at a specific aspect of conservation.

[17] Apparently the park ends where military jurisdiction begins; after all, the best governmental agency to manage a naval base is the Navy.

Its major geologic features are approximately 170 caves and gorges hosting rare, endangered, and endemic species.

[19] The brush cover of the mountains is stands and thickets of Mediterranean aromatic shrubs, such as thorny burnet, thyme, broom, winter savory, heather, rock rose, etc.

The cape and the coast with its isolated rocky spaces, wetlands, and beaches, stuck out in the middle of an oceanic flyway, attract dozens of species of migratory birds in large numbers.

Other fauna are dolphins, the Monk Seal, bats, martens, badgers, mice, lizards and non-poisonous snakes.

Around the time of its formation the Soviet Union disintegrated into individual states, unable to support the cost of its empire.

The EU's problems have been those of peace: growing and migrating populations, overdevelopment, pollution of the terrain, allocation of natural resources, such as water.

The closest meaning in Greek is "black-face," except that the phrase in other Mediterranean languages is "Moor's head," a mediaeval heraldic symbol of Christian faith.

A recent Natura 2000 document explains that GR4320006 protects the fossils, the archaeological material dating back to the Neolithic, and the endemic plant species.

[25] The cape is noted by many ancient secular writers including Strabo,[26] Ptolemy,[27] Pomponius Mela,[28] and Pliny the Elder,[29] and in the anonymous Stadiasmus Maris Magni.

It was at Samonion that the crew of the Alexandrian ship, which was conveying Paul the Apostle to Rome, changed course to pursue their voyage under the lee of Crete because of contrary winds.