[3] An aition explaining the name of Cephallenia and reinforcing its cultural connections with Athens associates the island with the mythological figure of Cephalus, who helped Amphitryon of Mycenae in a war against the Taphians and Teleboans.

Robert Bittlestone, in his book Odysseus Unbound, has suggested that Paliki, now a peninsula of Cephalonia, was a separate island during the late Bronze Age, and it may be this which Homer was referring to when he described Ithaca.

Ancient writers generally paid little attention to the island throughout antiquity, but there are some notable references, and it seems that the Kefalonian cities were involved in developments and events across the wider Greek world.

[7] 200 hoplites from Pale fought alongside other Greeks against the Persians in the decisive battle at Plataea,[8] and all four Kefalonian cities allied with Athens during the Peloponnesian War.

The Corinthians attempted, unsuccessfully, to attack Krane in 431 BC, and, 10 years later, Athens settled a group of Spartan deserters on the island.

[10] Finally, a group of Kefalonian soldiers were recruited by the Athenian general Demosthenes as part of the ill-fated Sicilian Expedition in 415-413 BC.

Athenian influence, including heavy direct taxation in the 4th century BC, may have been a stimulus for a new planned and fortified town at Same, which increasingly seems to have dominated the smaller polis of Pronnoi.

[6] The Kefalonian cities once again contributed troops and ships to broader Greek military events, this time Alexander the Great's invasion and conquest of the Persian Empire.

[16] From then on Cephalonia and Ithaca remained part of the Stato da Mar of the Venetian Republic until its very end, following the fate of the Ionian islands, completed by the capture of Lefkas from the Turks in 1684.

Its towns and villages were mostly built high on hilltops, to prevent attacks from raiding parties of pirates that sailed the Ionian Sea during the 1820s.

In 1809, the British established a blockade on the Ionian Islands as part of their conflict with France, and in September of that year they hoisted the Union Flag above the castle of Zakynthos.

By 1848, calls for enosis with Greece were gaining strength and there were rebellions against British rule in Argostoli and Lixouri, which led to some relaxation in the laws and to freedom of the press.

Union with Greece was now a declared aim, and in 1849, as revolution was sweeping across Europe, a growing restlessness resulted in another rebellion against the British state, which was suppressed by the island's governor, Sir Henry George Ward when 21 people were hanged, several were shot and hundreds were flogged by the cat-o-nine-tails.

Until late 1943, the occupying force was predominantly Italian, the 33rd Infantry Division Acqui plus Navy personnel totalled 12,000 men, but about 2,000 troops from Germany were also present.

Its epicentre was directly south of the southern tip of Cephalonia, and caused the entire island to be raised 60 cm (24 in) higher, where it remains, with evidence in water marks on rocks around the coastline.

The 1953 Ionian earthquake disaster caused huge destruction, with only regions in the north escaping the heaviest tremors and houses there remaining intact.

In mid-November 2003, an earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter magnitude scale caused minor damage to business, residential property, and other buildings in and near Argostoli.

In the southwestern portion of the island, in the area of Leivatho, an ongoing archaeological field survey by the Irish Institute at Athens has discovered dozens of sites with dates ranging from the Palaeolithic to the Venetian period.

The size of the tomb, the nature of the burial offerings found there, and its well-chosen position point to the existence of an important Mycenaean town in the vicinity.

A dissertation published in 1987 claims that Paul the Apostle, on his way from Palestine to Rome in 59 AD, was shipwrecked and confined for three months not on Malta but on Cephalonia.

Most of the Ainos mountain range is designated as a National Park[31] and is covered with the rare species of Greek fir (Abies cephalonica) and black pine (Pinus nigra).

Caves on these parts of the coast offer ideal locations for the seals to give birth to their pups and nurse them through the first months of their lives.

However, the pressure of Venetian conquerors' for olive plantation, especially after the loss of Peloponnese and Crete, resulted in increasing the production to such a degree that the first exports to Venice began.

[38] Across the broader island, two large monasteries are to be found: the first is that of Haghia Panagia in Markopoulo to the southeast, and the other lies on the road between Argostoli and Michata, on a small plain surrounded by mountains.

The Ionian Islands also developed a distinctive culture primarily as they did not experience Ottoman occupation, instead having ties to Venice, and musically drew from Italian influences, and Western Harmonics.

Additionally, a theory was proposed by Greek researcher Libieris Liberatos as to the true identity of the island setting from Shakespeare's "The Tempest" being Cephallonia.

During filming there was lively debate between the production team, local authorities as well as groups of citizens, as to the complex historical details of the island's antifascist resistance.

As a result, political references were omitted from the film, and the romantic core of the book was preserved, without entering complex debates about the island's history.

Almost every scheduled flight is an Olympic Air route, flying mainly to and from Athens, although there is an Ionian Island Hopper[45] service three times a week calling at Cephalonia, Zante and Lefkas.

The most significant are as follows: Cephalonia (spelt Kephallonia in game) is the home of Alexios and Kassandra, main characters of the videogame Assassin's Creed Odyssey (2018).