The recorded history of Cyprus stretches back more than 9000 years. Many excavations have provided ample testimony to the existence of human settlements from the Neolothic to the Bronze Age Periods. Around 1300 BC, the Greek Mycenaeans settled in commercial centres along the coast, and Cyprus enjoyed a period of great prosperity. In about 1000 BC, Greek Achaean colonies were established on the island. Undoubtedly, this testimony is the sound proof that Cyprus is an entirely Greek island.
However, these Greek settlements were later followed by a wide range of foreign invaders who envied Cyprus's strategic location in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The island stands at a cross-road in the Mediterranean, where Europe, Asia and Africa meet. For this reason, it has been sought after and invaded by all kinds of peoples, such as the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, the Persians and the Egyptians until Cyprus became a Roman colony in 58 BC.
From 330 AD, when the seat of the Roman Empire was transferred to Constantinople, Cyprus became part of the eastern Roman Empire, from which the Byzantine Empire grew as the Roman Empire declined. In the meanwhile, between 649 and 965 AD, Cyprus was plagued by Arab raiders. The Byzantine Empire went into decline and in 1191 Cyprus fell into the hands of the Crusaders and King Richard I of England known as the Lionheart. A year later, King Richard I offered Cyprus as a ...present to the French king Guy de Lusignan to compensate him for the loss of the kingdom of Jerusalem to Muslim hands.
Thus began the period of the French domination, under the Lusignans, which lasted until 1489. In the meantime, the Genoese had already occupied some towns of the island, and they were followed by the Venetians who secured and maintained dominion over the whole island until 1571 - the year in which Cyprus was annexed to the Ottoman Empire and Turks came to live on the island of Venus.
The Ottoman Empire was in steep decline when, in 1878, the Sultan of Constantinople and the British Government of Disraeli agreed that in exchange of British support against the threat from Russia, the Sultan would hand over control and administration of Cyprus to Britain. This gave Britain a military base close to the Suez Canal, which was opened in 1869. From 1878 to 1959, Cyprus remained a British colony, despite constant calls for Union (Enosis) with Greece from amazingly large sections of the Greek Cypriots and politicians from 1931 onward.
In 1950, the newly- elected Archbishop Makarios III became a political spokesman for the Greek Cypriots and their aspirations which were backed up by an armed struggle on the part of 95% of the Greek Cypriots belonging to the EOKA ( The National Oraganisation for the Struggle in Cyprus) resistance movement. EOKA began a guerilla war against British rule in 1955. When after three years of armed struggle, it became clear that all hope for annexation to Greece was in vain, Makarios agreed to the independence of the country and became the first President of the newly-born Republic of Cyprus on August 16th, 1960.
Right now, the 52-year-old Republic of Cyprus has been facing the most serious economic crisis since its birth in 1960! Despite the crisis and all the foreign invaders that claimed control over Cyprus, the truth is that the Republic of Cyprus remains to this day a Greek island even though the annexation to Greece has never occurred officially. We are Greek and we will survive as we have already survived throughout the centuries and our many conquerors.
This said, I would like to add that most of us Greek Cypriots dearly love the Turkish Cypriot population of the island even if they are a minority. They are our brothers and our sisters just like the Greek and Turkish population in Constantinople, Xanthi or Komotini. But every single Turk citizen or soldier in the illegally occupied area of Cyprus should go back home!
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