2014

Events

January

• January 1: Greece assumes the presidency of the European Union.
• January 6: Convicted November 17 member, Christodoulos Xiros, fails to report at a police station on his second-last day of prison leave, sparking a search by the Greek Police throughout central Macedonia.
• January 11: Two Golden Dawn MPs - Giorgos Germenis and Panagiotis Iliopoulos - are placed in pre-trial detention.
• January 12: Golden Dawn MP, Stathis Boukouras, is also placed in pre-trial detention.
• January 26: An earthquake, measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale, strikes Kefalonia.
• January 28: Kostas Nakopoulos breaks the Greek indoor record for the 800m with 1:48:64.

February

• February 1: An earthquake measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale strikes Amfiklia, Phthiotis prefecture.
• February 3: An earthquake, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale, strikes Kefalonia in the early hours of the morning.
• February 6: Moody's Investors Service upgrades the rating of the City of Athens to Caa3 from C.
• February 9: Panathinaikos defeat Aris 90-53 to lift the Greek Basketball Cup for their 15th time.
• February 12: An earthquake, measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale, strikes Kefalonia in the early afternoon.
• February 15: An earthquake, measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale, strikes Kefalonia in the early hours of the morning.
• February 21: The executive office of the Democratic Party of Cyprus (DIKO) votes to pull out of the government of Nikos Anastasiades.
• February 25: Kostas Douvalidis breaks the Greek record for the 60m hurdles with 7.60.
• February 25: Olympiakos defeat Manchester United 2-0 in the first leg of the knock out phase of the Champions' League.
• February 27: The central committee of the Democratic Party of Cyprus (DIKO) accepts the vote of the executive office and votes to pull out of the government of Nikos Anastasiades. Four DIKO ministers are called to resign from the Cabinet of Cyprus.

March

• March 2: Panathinaikos ends Olympiakos' 27-match unbeaten league run with a 3-0 away victory.
• March 6: German President, Joachim Gauck, pays a state visit to Greece.
• March 8: Kostas Filippidis wins the gold medal in the pole vault, with 5.80m, at the World Indoor Championships in Sopot, Poland.
• March 15: Olympiakos defeat Panthrakikos 2-0 and become the first European team to clinch their championship.
• March 19: Public sector union ADEDY starts a 48h strike against reserve labour and possible layoffs in the public sector.
• March 22: Cyprus declares a three-day mourning period for the death of serving Defence Minister Tasos Mitsopoulos.
• March 25: Corrections officer, Georgios Tsironis, is brutally murdered by Albanian inmate Ili Kareli in Malandrino prison.
• March 28: Murderer Ili Kareli is found dead in his cell at Nigrita prison where he was transferred, following his murder of warden Georgios Tsironis.

April

• April 4: An earthquake, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale, strikes 29km SE of Hydra.
• April 8: Six Nigrita prison officers are held in custody for the death of inmate Ili Kareli.
• April 9: Unions begin a 24-hour general strike, throughout Greece, to protest layoffs and privatisations.
• April 10: A bomb blows up outside the Greek central bank in Athens. There is damage but no injuries.
• April 10: Greece returns to the international bond market after a four-year absence.
• April 25: Standard and Poor’s and Fitch both upgrade their ratings and outlook for Cyprus based on the better-than-expected performance of its economy.
• April 26: Panathinaikos defeat PAOK 4-1 to lift the Greek Football Cup.
• April 27: A 13-year old boy dies and his 9-year old sister is injured in a freak accident at an amusement park.

May

• May 5: Cypriot president Nikos Anastasiades pays an official state visit to Germany.
• May 6: Alki Larnaca announce their dissolution.
• May 12: An earthquake, measuring 5 on the Richter scale, strikes 32km North of Igoumenitsa.
• May 12: The European Court of Human Rights orders Turkey to pay €90 million in part compensation to Cyprus over the 1974 invasion of the island. €30 million are for damages to relatives of those missing in the invasion and €60 million for the enclaved Greek-Cypriot residents of the Karpasia peninsula.
• May 13: Turkey announces that it has no plans to pay the €90 million to Cyprus awarded by the European Court of Human Rights.
• May 18: The first round of Mayoral and regional elections are held throughout Greece.
• May 21: US Vice President, John Biden, arrives in Cyprus on an official 3-day visit. This marks the first time a senior US official visits the island since Lyndon Johnson’s visit in 1962.
• May 21: APOEL defeat Ermis Aradippou 2-0 to win the Cyprus Football Cup.
• May 23: Fitch ratings agency upgrades Greece's credit rating to "B" from "B-".
• May 24: A strong earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale strikes the area between the islands of Lemnos and Samothrace.
• May 25: The second round of the mayoral and regional elections is held throughout Greece along with the election for the European Parliament. Georgios Kaminis and Yiannis Boutaris are re-elected mayors of Athens and Thessaloniki respectively while Ioannis Moralis wins in Piraeus. SYRIZA surprisingly win the European elections.
• May 30: A Greek court awards the non-profit organisation "The Child's Smile" custody of five-year old Maria - a blonde girl who had been found living in a Roma camp in October 2013.
• May 31: APOEL defeat AEL 1-0 and win the Cyprus league title.

June

• June 4: Panathinaikos defeats Olympiakos 82-71, in their fifth and decisive playoff game, and win their 34th Greek championship.
• June 9: PM Antonis Samaras announces the members of his reshuffled cabinet.
• June 10: The new cabinet is sworn in.
• June 13: An earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale, strikes off the coast of Kassos.
• June 13: Greek police seize 1.13 tons of heroin and arrest 11 individuals for drug trafficking. The seizure was the biggest of its kind in Greek history.
• June 14: Greece lose their WC 2014 opener against Colombia 3-0.
• June 19: Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrives in Athens for an official visit to Greece.
• June 20: Greece battle Japan to a 0-0 draw in their second WC 2014 game.
• June 24: Greece defeat the Ivory Coast 2-1 and qualify for the World Cup round of 16.
• June 29: Greece lose a penalty shootout against Costa Rica and are eliminated from the World Cup. The regulation time score was 1-1.
• June 30: The Greek presidency of the EU ends.

July

• July 16: Wanted terrorist Nikos Maziotis is arrested in Athens after a shootout with the police. Maziotis is a suspected member of the Revolutionary Struggle organisation and was on the run since 2012.
• July 23: Aegean Airlines and Cyprus Airways cancel their flights to and from Tel Aviv on account of security reasons due to the fighting in the Gaza Strip.
• July 25: Claudio Ranieri signs a two-year contract as coach of the National Football Team of Greece.
• July 25: Cypriot Dimitris Minasidis wins gold, in the men's 62 kg weightlifting, at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

August

• August 1: The Hellenic Navy frigate "Salamis" successfully evacuates 186 people from war-torn Libya, including the personnel of the Greek Embassy.
• August 1: Moody's Investors Service upgrades Greece's government bond rating two notches: from Caa3 to Caa1.
• August 12: Archaeologists unearth a vast tomb in Amphipolis, Macedonia, Greece, dating to the period just after the death of Alexander the Great.
• August 13: Ermis Aradippou win the Cyprus Super Cup, for the first time in their history, by defeating favourites APOEL 2-1.
• August 15: A 39-year old man is murdered in Astros by his 75-year old father who was assisted in the crime by his brother (aged 71), his son-in-law (aged 53) and the 67-year old mother of the victim.
• August 22: An earthquake, measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, strikes the Chalkidiki peninsula.
• August 26: APOEL defeat AaB Aalborg 4-0 to advance into the group stage of the Champions League.
• August 28: Apollon Limassol stun Lokomotiv 4-1 in Moscow to advance to the group stage of the Europa League.
• August 29: An earthquake, measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale, strikes the Aegean Sea, 145km SE of Athens.
• August 29: Ilias Iliadis wins gold in judo at the 2014 World Championships in Chelnyabinsk, Russia.

September

• September 9: The Hellenic Parliament passes an anti-racism bill that includes the criminalization of denial of the genocides perpetrated against Armenians and Greeks.
• September 18: Main opposition SYRIZA leader, Alexis Tsipras, meets with Pope Francis I in the Vatican.
• September 18: Stefanos Athanasiadis becomes the first ever PAOK-player to score a hat-trick in an European match.
• September 19: Pop singer Lady Gaga performs at OAKA Stadium as part of her tour.
• September 29: 46-year old football fan, Kostas Katsoulis, succumbs to injuries sustained two weeks earlier, when a fight broke out between fans of his team Ethnikos Piraeus and Herodotos Crete.

October

• October 7: Three Greek soldiers are killed during a mortar firing exercise at a range in Volos, Thessaly.
• October 11: Prime Minister Antonis Samaras wins a vote of confidence in the Hellenic Parliament. Voting for the government were the 155 MPs of New Democracy and PASOK.
• October 14: The Athens Stock Market closes at 948.21 - a loss of 5.70% - which is the lowest level in 13 months.
• October 15: Values on the Athens Stock Market tumble for the second straight day as the index drops another 6.25% to close at 888.93 - its lowest level since July 31, 2013.
• October 24: Heavy rain causes flooding in many parts of Athens and Piraeus.
• October 24: The EU leaders express "serious concern" over Turkish provocations in the Cyprus exclusive economic zone and call on Turkey to “to respect Cyprus’ sovereignty over its territorial sea and Cyprus’ sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone.”
• October 25: An earthquake, measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale, strikes just 25km south of Arta.

November

• November 7: The Athens Stock Exchange closes at 910.50 - a loss of 5.38%.
• November 12: Archaeologists announce that they found a man's bones in the third room of the Amphipolis tomb. Among the possible candidates as to the identity of the dead man are: King Cassandros, Admiral Nearchus and even Alexander the Great.
• November 14: Greece suffer a humiliating 0-1 home loss to the Faroe Islands in the qualifying games of Euro 2016.
• November 15: Moody's upgrades Cyprus' sovereign rating from Caa3 to B3.
• November 15: Claudio Ranieri is sacked from his position as coach of the Greek National Football Team.
• November 18: Two earthquakes (5.5 and 5.2 on the Richter scale) strike north of Chalkida.
• November 30: Patriarch Bartholomew meets Pope Francis in Constantinople.

December

• December 2: Cyprus President Nikos Anastasiades undergoes cardiac surgery in New York to repair the mitral valve.
• December 5: PM Antonis Samaras calls the decision by the British Museum to loan out the Elgin marbles to Russia "an affront to the Greek people."
• December 6: Acclaimed writer Menis Koumandareas is found murdered in his home in Kypseli.
• December 9: Prime Minister Antonis Samaras names Stavros Dimas as his candidate for the Greek presidency.
• December 9: The Athens Stock Exchange general index ends the day's session at 902.84 after a dramatic 12.78% drop. The loss - caused by political uncertainty - is the worst since 1987.
• December 12: Unknown assailants fire dozens of bullets at the facade of the Israeli embassy in Athens.
• December 17: Stavros Dimas fails to get elected President of Greece, gathering only 160 votes instead of the required 200 in parliament.
• December 19: Independent Greeks MP Pavlos Haikalis alleges that he was offered a bribe to vote in favour of the government's candidate for President Stavros Dimas.
• December 23: Stavros Dimas fails for the second time to get elected President of Greece, gathering only 168 votes in parliament.
• December 28: The ferry boat Norman Atlantic, which was traveling from Patra to Ancona, Italy, catches fire off the coast of Corfu.
• December 29: Stavros Dimas fails for the third time to get elected President of Greece again receiving only 168 votes. PM Antonis Samaras proclaims parliamentary elections for January 25, 2015.

Deaths

January

• January 23: Takis Papadimitriou, footballer

February

• February 5: Jenny Vanou, singer
• February 21: Sakis Boulas, singer, actor
• February 26: Lakis Maramenidis, footballer

March

• March 22: Tasos Mitsopoulos, Minister for Defence of Cyprus.
• March 24: Stavros Daifas, ex-president of Olympiakos FC.
• March 26: Lakis Pappas, singer.

May

• May 10: Makis Alkiviades, Cypriot footballer.
• May 17: Anna Polatou, gymnast, bronze medalist in 2000 Olympiad.
• May 23: Panagiotis Poikilidis, wrestler.
• May 29: Kyriakos Kazantzidis, footballer.

June

• June 11: Kostas Mourouzis, basketball player and coach.

July

• July 9: Nikitas Gavalas, sportswriter
• July 18: Mimis Gribelakos, footballer

August

• August 4: Christodoulos Pasiardis, Cypriot former Minister for Defence

September

• September 2: Antonis Vardis, composer

October

• October 16: Ioannis Charalambopoulos, politician, cabinet member
• October 20: Spyros Zagoraios, laika singer and composer.

December

• December 3: Costas Linoxilakis, footballer
• December 6: Menis Koumandareas, writer
• December 11: Georgios Petsos, politician
• December 27: Mayia Melayia, singer