2006

Jet Fighter Pilot Costas Eliakis was never recovered after the two F-16 collision

Greek police launch a murder investigation after five men on a hunting trip were found shot to death in the rural area of central Greece, Saturday Nov.25, 2006

Events

January

• January 29: Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis plays against Roger Federer in the mens' final of the Australian Open. Baghdatis takes the first set but eventually loses 3-1 sets.

February

• February 2: The Greek government confirms that Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and several ministers had their mobile phones tapped for more than a year - begining before the Athens Olympics in 2004 and lasting until March 2005.
• February 14: Dora Bakoyianni is appointed Foreign Minister by PM Costas Karamanlis.
• February 23: Theodoros Bechrakis is elected interim Mayor of Athens by the city council, following Dora Bakoyianni's resignation due to being appointed as Foreign Minister. Bechrakis receives 14 of the 25 votes while his opponent, Angelos Moschonas, receives 10. There was one blank ballot.

April

• April 16: A passenger train crashes into a truck, at a crossing near Drama, killing four people and injuring 40.
• April 18: Vassilis Kontovazenitis becomes the 15th President of EPAE, taking over leadership from Alexandros Lykourezos

May

• May 6: Periklis Iakovakis breaks the Greek record for 400m hurdles with 47.82.
• May 6: Apollon Limassol defeat Anorthosis 3-1 and win the Cypriot football title for only the third time in their history. The Lemesos club went through the entire season without a single defeat.
• May 10: In the first Greek Football Cup final played in Crete, Olympiakos defeat AEK 3-0.
• May 20: Sakis Rouvas and Maria Menounos host the only Eurovision contest to be held in Athens which Finnish group "Lordi" win.
• May 22: The 19th century painting The Naughty Grandchild by Nikiforos Lytras became the most expensively sold piece of artwork by a Greek painter, going for 1.08 million euros at an auction at Sotheby's in London.
• May 23: Two F-16 fighter jets, one Greek and the other Turkish, collide in mid-air over international waters in the southern Aegean Sea. The Greek F-16 had been dispatched to intercept the Turkish jet because it had violated Greek airspace, according to the Greek Defense Ministry. The Turkish pilot ejected safely and was picked up by a merchant ship, while the Greek airman (Costas Eliakis) went missing despite a major rescue effort.
• May 25: Australia got the better of reigning European champions Greece (1-0) in a friendly game before a record breaking crowd of 96,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground - around 60,000 of whom were members of the city's large Greek community.

June

• June 7: Panathinaikos win the Greek basketball championship sweeping all three playoff games from Olympiakos. The title is the 8th in the last nine years for the greens.
• June 18: Dimitris Tsiamis set a new national record in the men's triple jump, registering a 17.55-meter performance during a two-day meeting in Thessaloniki. The previous Greek record had been set by Costas Zalagitis, just under four years ago, with a 17.43-meter leap.

July

• July 3: FIFA suspended the Hellenic Football Federation (HFF), European champions Greece and its member clubs, from international competition because of government interference in the sport.
• July 12: The FIFA Emergency Committee decided to lift the suspension on the Hellenic Football Federation (HFF) on July 3 after receiving confirmation that the Greek Parliament had approved an amendment to the national legislation relating to sport.
• July 31: Swimming in the fifth heat of the 400-meter freestyle qualifiers at the European Swimming Championships in Budapest, Spyros Gianniotis set a new national record with a time of 3:48.67, breaking the previous record of 3:48.77, which he had set at the Athens Olympics two years ago.
• July 31: Aris Grigoriadis, competing in the 100-meter backstroke at the European Swimming Championships in Budapest, broke his own national record with a time of 54.51 seconds, trimming a 10th of a second from the 54.61 seconds he had registered at the Worlds in Montreal last year.

August

• August 1: Aris Grigoriadis wins a bronze medal at the European Swimming Championships, in 100m backstroke.
• August 2: Nery Niangkouara set a new national record and the bronze metal at the European Swimming Championship in Budapest finishing in third place in the women's 100m freestyle with 54.48".
• August 3: Yiannis Drymonakos wins silver medal in the men's 200-meter butterfly at the European Swimming Championships in Budapest.
• August 3: Aris Grigoriadis captures silver medal in the men's 50-meter backstroke at the European Swimming Championships in Budapest.
• August 9: Fani Halkia wins silver (54.02 sec.) in the women's 400-meter hurdles final at the European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. She had been favored to win the gold.
• August 9: Triple jumper Pigi Devetzi wins silver (15.05 m) at the European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden.
• August 10: Pericles Iakovakis wins gold for Greece - its first gold medal at the European Championships - with an exceptional run in the men's 400m hurdles (48.46 sec.).
• August 22: Major fires break out in Chalkidiki prefecture.

September

• September 1: Greece defeat the USA 101-95 in the semi-finals of the World Basketball Championship in Japan.
• September 3: Greece are defeated by Spain 70-47 in the final of the World Basketball Championship in Japan.
• September 10: Periklis Iakovakis wins the Men's 400m hurdles at the IAAF World Athletics Final in Stuttgart, southern Germany
• September 17: Marcos Baghdatis defeats Mario Ancic to win the China Open.

October

• October 1: Eleni Daniilidou wins the USD145,000 Tennis Korean Open in heroic fashion by beating fourth seed Ai Sugiyama of Japan 6-3, 2-6, 7-6.
• October 7: Cyprus triumph over the Republic of Ireland 5-2 as Michalis Konstantinou and Kostas Charalambidis score two goals each.

November

• November 6: Chrysostomos II is elected Archbishop of Cyprus
• November 22: The teleconferencing method is used for the first time with court witnesses in Greece. They testified from Piraeus by live video link to a court in Finland hearing the appeal of a Greek shipping firm over the foundering of a vessel off Finland in 1993 which caused an environmental disaster.
• November 25: The bodies of the five young men - two brothers and three cousins - were found in woodland in the Kalyvia, Agrinio region. They had each been shot at least twice in what appeared to have been an execution-style killing.
• November 25: Aris Gregoriadis sets a Greek record for 100m freestyle swimming at a Volos meeting with a time of 48:76. He held the previous record (49:06), set one week previously at Thessaloniki.

December

• December 17: Eleni Mavrou is elected as the first woman Mayor of Lefkosia.

Deaths

January

• January 7: Leon Karapanagiotis, Newspaper publisher

March

• March 15: George Rallis, politician and Prime Minister

April

• April 25: Missas Pantazopoulos, basketball player and coach.

May

• May 4: Alexis Damianos, actor, director
• May 22: Kazimierz Gorski, football coach

June

• June 13: Yolanda Terenzio, journalist, writer
• June 28: Boban Jankovic, basketball player

July

• July 7: Methodios, Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain

September

• September 11: Peter Clentzos, pole vaulter, 1932 Olympic competitor.

October

• October 29: Maria Kalouta, stage and screen actress.

November

• November 17: Ferenc Puskas, legendary football player and coach.
• November 29: Christos Tegopoulos, newspaper founder, publisher