2009

Events

January

January 5: 21-year old Police officer, Diamantis Matzounis, is fired upon with Kalashnikov rifles, outside the Ministry of Culture, and is injured as assaults against policemen continue since the shooting death of teenager, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, on December 6, 2008. A caller to a Greek television station claimed responsibility for the shooting in the name of a local far-left group Revolutionary Struggle which figures on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations.
January 7: Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis carries out a sweeping reshuffle of his Cabinet as his party struggles to retain its razor-thin control of parliament amid a string of scandals and the worst civil unrest the country has seen in decades.
January 12: Greek shipowner, Pericles Panagopoulos, is kidnapped by three armed men on his way to work in the plush seaside Athens suburb of Kavouri
January 14: Police said that the Greek militant group Revolutionary Struggle sent a statement to the weekly Pontiki newspaper saying it carried out a Dec. 23 shooting attack on a riot police bus and a separate January 5 shooting at police in which one officer was seriously wounded.
January 17: 58-year old fan, Sotiris Serafeim, suffers a heart attack and dies in the midst of a fight in the stands following the football game between Iraklis and AEK at Kaftantzoglio Stadium, Thessaloniki.
January 19: Police officer Diamantis Matzounis is released from the intensive care unit of the Athens General Hospital Korgialenio-Benakio National Red Cross making a step towards recovery.
January 19: The Athens Stock Exchange closes at 1,660.04 after losses of 5.14%.
January 19: Greek shipping magnate Pericles Panagopoulos - who was kidnapped at gunpoint on January 12 - is released.
January 20: Turkish actor, Atilla Olgaç, stirs up controversy after admitting on Turkish TV that he killed 10 Greek Cypriots, including POWs, during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
January 21: Antros Kyprianou is elected Secretary General of AKEL, replacing Dimitris Christofias.
January 24: Sophocles Pilavios is elected Chairman of the Hellenic Football Federation (EPO).

February

February 4: Nikos Thanopoulos is elected President of AEK.
February 17: The Athens Stock Market index drops 5.19% closing at 1,603.80.
February 22: Serial armed robber and kidnapper, Vasilis Paleokostas, and his Albanian sidekick escape from Korydallos prison by helicopter.
February 22: Panathinaikos win the Greek Basketball Cup for the fifth year running by defeating Olympiakos 80-70.
February 25: Kostas Douvalidis breaks the Greek indoor record for the 60m hurdles with a time of 7.68.

March

March 4: Panserraikos stun Panathinaikos 3-2 in Athens and eliminate them from the Greek Football Cup.
March 19: Greek-owned cargo ship "Titan", with 24 crew members on board, is seized off the coast of Somalia by pirates.
March 21: Panathinaikos defeat Italy’s Bre Banca Lannutti Cuneo 3-2 sets and qualify for the final of the CEV Cup.
March 22: Olympiakos defeat Panionios 3-2 and clinch their 12th football championship in the last 13 years.
March 22: Panathinaikos lose 3-1 sets to Russia's Lokomotiv-Belogorie Belgorod in the final of the CEV Cup.

April

April 2: The Athens Stock Exchange index reaches 1,740 after gains of 4.4%.
April 2: Both Olympiakos and Panathinaikos qualify for the Final Four of European basketball after away wins at Real Madrid and Sienna respectively.
April 5: Iraklis play in the final of the volleyball Champions League where they lose to Italy's Trentino 3-1 sets.
April 7: Patriarch Bartholomew I meets with US President Barack Obama in Istanbul.
April 12: OFI lose to Ergotelis 1-0 and are relegated to the B Division for the first time in 33 years.
April 13: Temuri Ketsbaia resigns as coach of Anorthosis Famagusta after five years at the helm. The Georgian had led Anorthosis into the CL Group Stage earlier in the season.
April 19: The hard-line National Unity party win the elections in the occupied areas of Cyprus. Party leader, Dervis Eroglu, promises to support the ongoing negotiations between President Christofias and Talat.
April 29: 2004 Summer Olympics 20 km walk champion Athanasia Tsoumeleka tested positive for the blood booster CERA at last year's Beijing Games.
April 30: The Greek weightlifting federation suspended two weightlifters, Giorgos Papadopoulos and Christina Filandrianou who tested positive for a banned stimulant during national games this year.
April 30: The Athens Stock Exchange index hits a five month high after gains of 3.18%, closing at 2,053.74.

May

May 1: Panathinaikos defeat Olympiakos 84-82 in their Euroleague semifinal matchup in Berlin.
May 2: Olympiakos win the Greek Football Cup on penalties, after a 4-4 thriller of a final match against AEK.
May 3: Panathinaikos defeat CSKA Moscow 73-71 and win their fifth Euroleague title.
May 5: Greece's parliament votes against indicting a former minister Aristotelis Pavlidis in a corruption probe that could have forced early elections on the embattled conservative government. The vote over an alleged bribery scandal fell short of the 151 ballots required with only 146 lawmakers voting in favor and 144 against.
May 7: A first instance court on Rhodes issues a ruling nullifying a pair of same-sex marriages conducted last June on the isle of Tilos.
May 8: Olympiakos Piraeus announces the club are not renewing the contract of coach Ernesto Valverde despite the Spaniard leading the club to the league title and Greek Cup.
May 8: Former Greek transport minister, Christos Verelis, resigns his seat in parliament after a prosecutor ordered a corruption probe into a bus contract to Neoplan, a subsidiary of German truckmaker and industrial company MAN AG.
May 14: Olympiakos Piraeus play a friendly in Hanoi, losing 1-0 to the national team of Vietnam.
May 16: Angeliki Exarchou crushed her national record in the women's 200 breast with a time of 2:27.39 during the first night of long course meter swimming at the Czech Grand Prix. Her performance wiped out the 2:29.44 national mark she set back in 2005.
May 18: Greece confirms its first case of H1N1 flu, a student who returned from the United States a few days ago. He was first taken to the hospital by his father in the early hours of the day after experiencing a cough and high fever. After initial tests were conducted, he was told to return home but was later taken by ambulance to the Sismanoglio Hospital after the second test conducted at the Pasteur Institute came out positive, showing he had swine flu.
May 18: The United States announces that it is listing Revolutionary Struggle as a foreign terrorist organization after the Greek leftist group attacked US diplomatic and business interests.
May 18: Alexander the Great is named "the greatest Greek of all time" in a poll of viewers of Sky TV. Surprisingly, Dr George Papanicolaou wins second place while Theodoros Kolokotronis finishes third.
May 29: Former King Constantine, 68, undergoes a successful heart bypass operation at a private hospital in north London

June

June 1: Panathinaikos defeat Olympiakos 91-84 and win the A1 basketball championship in Greece for the seventh time in a row.
June 1: Predrag Djordjevic announces his retirement from football. The Olympiakos captain had been a mainstay in his team's midfield for the past 13 years.
June 4: Greeks and Cypriots, along with other Europeans, go to the polls to elect their MEPs.
June 17: 41-year old police officer, Nektarios Savvas, is shot dead in the Patisia section of Athens, while guarding a witness in the case against the Revolutionary People's Struggle.
June 19: Greek-born photo-journalist Iason Athanasiadis is among a number of foreign journalists arrested in Iran following the disputed presidential poll. He was on assignment for the Washington Times where he has been covering the post-election protests.
June 20: The Acropolis Museum opens to the public.
June 22: The immediate closure of Athens daily Eleftheros Typos newspaper and its sister radio station City 99.5 FM is announced after billionaire businessman Theodore Angelopoulos and his wife Gianna Angelopoulou-Daskalaki, the former head of the organizing committee for the 2004 Athens Olympics, decided to end their involvement in publishing.
June 22: The Greek extremist group Revolutionary Sect, claims responsibility for the fatal shooting of officer Nektarios Savvas in a proclamation contained in a CD disk left for Greek daily Ta Nea.
June 24: Panathinaikos acquire striker Djibril Cisse from Olympique Marseille for 8 million euros.
June 26: The wife of a Greek shipowner Aris Theodorides was freed unharmed, a week after being kidnapped outside her home in Athens after her family paid an undisclosed ransom. Reports said the woman was released unharmed in the early hours after her family paid a ransom of 1.8 million euros.
June 28: Greece wins five gold medals in rowing in the Mediterranean Games.
June 30: Nikoletta Kyriakopoulou wins gold for Greece in the Mediterranean Games in the women's pole vault.
June 30: Eleni Artymata wins gold for Cyprus in the Mediterranean Games in the women's 200m.

July

July 1: A ban on smoking in nearly all enclosed public places goes into effect throughout Greece.
July 1: Two members of Greece's weightlifting team at the Mediterranean Games in Italy test positive for doping, according to the head of the Greek Weightlifting Federation (EOAB). Nikos Kourtidis, who won two gold medals in the men's 94-kg category, and Konstantina Lapou, who took silver in the women's 58-kg.
July 1: Panagiotis Gionis wins the Men's Singles title in the table tennis events at the Mediterranean Games in the Italian town of Pescara.
July 1: Anastasia Christophorou becomes the first Cypriot swimmer to win a gold medal in the Mediterranean Games in the 50m Breaststroke.
July 1: Kyriakos Ioannou wins gold for Cyprus in the Mediterranean Games in the high jump.
July 1: Georgia Kokloni wins gold for Greece in the Mediterranean Games in the 100m.
July 2: Voisava Lika wins gold for Greece in the Mediterranean Games in the javelin throw.
July 2: Athanasia Perra wins gold for Greece in the Mediterranean Games in the triple jump.
July 5: Iran releases Greek reporter Iason Athanasiadis. Athanasiadis of The Washington Times was arrested on or around June 19. Iran's State television quotes a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Hasan Qashqavi, as saying that Iason Athanasiadis-Fowden has been released in, what he described as the framework of Tehran-Athens ties.
July 7: The Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE) said the country's 13 biggest airports saw a total of 3.9 million arrivals during this period, down 9.6 per cent from last year. The the decline means a loss of more than 560,000 tourists which in turn translates into a loss of 19,000 jobs.
July 11: The Greek U19 basketball team defeat Australia 84-69 to advance to the final of the FIBA U19 World Basketball Championship.
July 12: Greece win second place in the FIBA U19 World Basketball Championship after losing 88-80 to the USA in the final.
July 12: Greek police demolish a make-shift immigrant camp outside Patra and arrest 15 illegal immigrants.
July 16: Savvas Siatravanis becomes the youngest Greek footballer to play in a European competition. He was inserted as a late substitute in the Europa League match between KR Rejkjavik and AE Larisa FC.
July 25: The Greek U-20 basketball team defeat Spain 87-76 in the semifinal of the European Championship in Rhodes.
July 26: The Greek U-20 basketball team defeat France 90-85 and win the European Championship.

August

August 4: Panathinaikos defeat Sparta Prague 3-0 to overturn their 1-3 loss in the first leg and advance in the Champions' League.
August 5: APOEL, despite a 0-1 loss in Belgrade, advance in the Champions' League, defeating Partizan 2-1 in aggregate.
August 13: Former AEK and Iraklis basketball player, Lavelle Felton, is shot in Milwaukee, WI, USA. He will die the next day.
August 15: Turkish PM, Tayyip Erdogan, visits the Orthodox orphanage and the monastery of St George Koudounas in the Prince's Islands.
August 20: Eleni Artymata becomes the first Cypriot woman to qualify for the finals of the World Championships in athletics. She did so in the 200m with a time of 22.64 - a new Cypriot record.
August 21: Kyriakos Ioannou of Cyprus wins the silver medal in the high jump at the Berlin World Championship of athletics with a 2.32m performance.
August 21: A wildfire breaks out late in the village of Grammatiko about 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Athems and quickly spreads to neighboring villages.
August 22: More than 70 wildfires break out throughout Greece.
August 24: Helped by a lull in winds, fire fighters beat back wildfires that swept through suburbs of Athens and forced thousands of people to flee their homes.
August 26: APOEL FC defeat FC Kobenhavn 3-1 and advance to the group stage of the Champions' League for the first time in their history.
August 26: The fires around the Greek capital were put out or contained to tiny areas, after razing 80 square miles (210 square kilometers) of forest and hillside scrub.
August 27: A Greek fire-fighting plane crashes while battling a blaze on the Ionian Sea island of Kefalonia, killing the pilot.

September

September 2: A bomb explodes outside the Athens Stock Exchange, slightly injuring a woman and damaging the building. Terrorist group Revolutionary Struggle take credit for the act.
September 2: A bomb explodes at a government building (ministry of Macedonia-Thrace) in Thessaloniki. The explosion caused minor damage and no injuries.
September 2: Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis calls early general elections, stressing need for economic reform and blaming PASOK.
September 6: Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire say in a statement they were behind the blast at a ministry in Thessaloniki on September 2.
September 7: The National Basketball Team of Greece start off Eurobasket 2009 with a convincing 86-54 victory over FYROM.
September 10: The second phase of the formal direct negotiations, between President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, begin in Cyprus with the aim of re-unifying the divided island.
September 15: Olympiakos sack coach Timur Ketsbaia on the eve of their CL Group stage opener against AZ Alkmaar.
September 15: APOEL play their first game in the CL Group Stage and come away with a 0-0 draw against Atletico Madrid in Estadio Vicente Calderon.
September 17: The new Europa League group stage commences. AEK and Panathinaikos lose to Everton (0-4) and Galatasaray (1-3) respectively.
September 18: The Ministry for the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works issues a permit to Panathinaikos to build a new stadium at Votanikos, Athens.
September 18: The National Basketball Team of Greece qualify for the semifinals of Eurobasket 2009 with an overtime 76-74 victory over Turkey.
September 19: Greece lose 82-64 to Spain in the semifinals of Eurobasket 2009.
September 20: Greece defeat Slovenia 57-56 and win third place in Eurobasket 2009.
September 23: Police in Athens arrest four suspected of belonging to the small leftist guerrilla group Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire, in raids following the explosion of a bomb a day before which caused only minor damage outside the home of opposition socialist member Loukas Katselis.
September 28: Olympic Airlines ceases to operate.
September 29: Olympic Air commences limited unofficial operations.

October

October 1: The first official flight by Olympic Air, conducted by an Airbus 320, takes off from Athens' Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport (AIA) at 7:45 a.m. and arrives in Thessaloniki's Macedonia Airport at 8:15 a.m.
October 4: Giorgos Papandreou's Panhellenic Socialist Movement triumphs in the parliamentary elections.
October 6: Giorgos Papandreou is sworn in as Prime Minister of Greece.
October 6: The Athens Stock Exchange closes at a year-high 2,678.50 after gains of 3.77%.
October 7: The members of Giorgos Papandreou's cabinet are sworn in. The new cabinet includes nine women: five ministers and four deputy ministers.
October 9: PAOK Thessaloniki appoints technical manager Zissis Vryzas as its new chairman, replacing former Greece teammate Theo Zagorakis.
October 10: Fanis Gekas scores four goals as Greece crush Latvia 5-2.
October 14: Greece qualify for the playoffs, in their World Cup 2010 campaign, by defeating Luxembourg 2-1.
October 19: PM Giorgos Papandreou pays an official state visit to Cyprus.
October 27: A little-known Greek guerrilla group, The Council for the Deconstruction of Order, claims responsibility for makeshift bomb attacks outside the party offices of Justice Minister Harris Kastanidis and Deputy Civil Protection Minister Spyros Vougias on October 23 in Thessaloniki.
October 28: Gunmen wound six officers outside an Agia Paraskevi, Athens police station by firing nearly 100 rounds from Kalashnikov assault rifles in a drive-by attack.
October 30: A small bomb explodes outside the private residence of Marietta Giannakou, a former education minister under New Democracy government and a current Greek member of the European Parliament, near the center of Athens, causing damage but no injuries. Two smaller bombs were detonated near the Spanish consulate in Thessaloniki and a car dealership in Athens, also without resulting in injuries.
October 31: PAOK defeat Aris 83-48. The 35-point difference is the greatest ever recorded in encounters between the two Thessaloniki clubs.

November

November 3: A new group calling itself the Cell of Rebels claim responsibility for Sunday, Nov. 1 bomb blast at a shopping center in the northern suburb of Kifissia.
November 3: Prime Minister George Papandreou tells an international forum on migration in Athens that all children born to migrants from now on will automatically acquire Greek citizenship
November 4: Ban Ki-moon becomes the first Secretary-General of the United Nations to visit Greece.
November 10: The new airport of Larnaca begins operations.
November 16: Greece launches vaccination campaigns against swine flu (H1N1).
November 18: Greece qualify for the finals of World Cup 2010 after a 1-0 victory in Donetsk against Ukraine.
November 26: The Athens Stock Market closes at 2,225.32 - a loss of 6.21%, which is the greatest loss of the year.
November 29: A good day for Olympiakos as they defeat their eternal opponents Panathinaikos both in football (2-0) and basketball (87-76).
November 29: Antonis Samaras is elected leader of the New Democracy party from the first round. His main opponent was former Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis.

December

December 8: The Athens Stock Market closes at 2,178.70 - a loss of 6.04% - which is the lowest level since July.
December 8: Panathinaikos sack coach Henk ten Cate.
December 8: APOEL come away with a 2-2 Champions' League draw at Stamford Bridge against Chelsea. It was the first time, all season long, that Chelsea had failed to win at home and the first goals they conceded since last August!
December 9: Olympiakos defeat Arsenal 1-0 to advance out of the Group Stage of the Champions' League.
December 11: Unknown individuals steal the corpse of Tassos Papadopoulos from Deftera Cemetery, Cyprus.
December 15: PM Giorgos Papandreou announces a series of austerity measures designed to reduce the national deficit.
December 28: The self proclaimed radical anarchist group Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire claimed responsibility for an explosion late December 27 near the buildings of the National Bank of Greece and a big private insurance company on a central boulevard in Athens.

Deaths

June

June 10: Stelios Skevofilakas, footballer
June 24: İsmet Güney, Turkish-Cypriot designer of the flag of Cyprus.
June 27: Spyros Kalogirou, actor

July

July 7: Costas Chimonides, high jump athlete, coach

August

August 3: Nikolaos Makarezos, member of the military junta that governed Greece (1967 - 1973)
August 14: Lavelle Felton, basketball player.
August 24: Yiannis Mertziotis, athlete (1500m, 5000m, 3000m steeplechase)

September

September 2: Stelios Tavoularis, basketball player.
September 11: Georgios Papoulias, diplomat, Foreign Minister.
September 11: Manolis Klikopoulos, footballer.
September 29: Sperantza Vrana, actress

October

October 27: Elli Pappa, leftist writer and reporter.

November

November 11: Savvas Hadjiioannou, footballer
November 15: Antonio de Nigris, footballer for AE Larisa

December

December 20: Yiannis Moralis, painter
December 21: Christos Lambrakis, publisher
December 28: Galateia Sarante, author

2009

Contents

Events

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Deaths

January

February

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Navigation menu

Search