1956

Events

January

• January 9: EOKA fighter, Kyriakos Matsis, is arrested, along with his brother Yiannakis, by the British.

February

• February 7: Student Petros Yiallouros, a member of ANE, is slain during a protest in Cyprus.
• February 29: Lina Tsaldari becomes the first woman Cabinet member. She is the widow of former PM Panagis Tsaldaris.

March

• March 4: 17-year old EOKA fighter, Giorgos Charalambous, is killed in Limassol.

April

• April 18: Maria Desylla becomes the first woman elected mayor of a Greek city (Kerkyra).
• April 23: EOKA fighter, Iakovos Patatsos, is arrested in Lefkosia for the murder of PC Nihat Basif.

May

• May 9: A huge protest in Athens, over the executions of Michalis Karaolis and Andreas Dimitriou, turns bloody as four protesters are killed and 164 are injured.
• May 10: Michalis Karaolis and Andreas Dimitriou become the first two Greek-Cypriots executed by the British during the EOKA campaign.

June

• June 10: The Lycabettus funicular came into operation

July

• July 9: A major earthquake (7.3 on the Richter scale) strikes Santorini resulting in 53 deaths and more than 100 injuries.

August

• August 10: Phaedon Mattheou scores a personal record of 28 points against Syria (94-75) at Cairo for the pre-olympic tournament. Mattheou will score a total of 529 points in 44 matches with the national basketball team. In this match Vangelis Nikitopoulos will play for the second and last time in his career.

December

• December 18: Evagoras Pallikaridis is arrested in Cyprus by the British.

Births

September

• September 14: Costas Karamanlis, Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic

October

• October 18: Giorgos Kimoulis, actor
• October 27: Babis Tsertos, musician, performer of traditional, folk and rebetiko songs

November

• November 13: Anna Verouli, athlete.

Deaths

• February 23: Marika Ninou, singer.