1956

Events

January 3: The National Radical Union is founded by Constantine Karamanlis.
January 9: EOKA fighter, Kyriakos Matsis, is arrested, along with his brother Yiannakis, by the British.
January 24: The Democratic Union coalition is founded by Georgios Papandreou and other centrist and leftist politicians.

February 7: Student Petros Yiallouros, a member of ANE, is slain during a protest in Cyprus.
February 19: Owing to the complexity of the Greek electoral system (three different systems depending on region!), the National Radical Union emerges victorious from the Greek elections eventhough they were out-polled by the Democratic Union.
February 29: Lina Tsaldari becomes the first woman Cabinet member. She is the widow of former PM Panagis Tsaldaris.

March 4: 17-year old EOKA fighter, Giorgos Charalambous, is killed in Limassol.
March 5: "The fiend" (O Drakos) is released in cinemas throughout Greece.
March 9: Archbishop Makarios III is seized at Nicosia Airport by the British colonial authorities in Cyprus and exiled to the Seychelle Islands in the Indian Ocean.
March 29: Dorotheus is elected Archbishop of Athens and all Greece.

April 18: Maria Desylla-Kapodistria becomes the first woman elected mayor of a Greek city (Kerkyra/Corfu).
April 22: Greece lose to Italy's seconds 7-1 in a Mediterranean Cup game played in Naples.
April 23: EOKA fighter, Iakovos Patatsos, is arrested in Lefkosia for the murder of PC Nihat Basif.
April 27: A RAF Douglas Dakota is destroyed on the ground by a bomb thought to have been placed by EOKA fighters.

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.
May 16: EOKA members Michalis Koutsoftas and Andreas Panagidis kill British Cpl. Patrick J. Hale in retaliation for the Karaolis-Dimitriou executions 6 days earlier.
May 27: Kostas Sfikas breaks the Greek record for the triple jump with 15.18m. The old record by Ioannis Palamiotis had stood for 17 years.
May 28: Greek Foreign Minister, Spyros Theotokis, is forced to resign over the Cyprus matter.

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

August 9: Iakovos Patatsos, Charilaos Michail and Andreas Zakos are hanged by the British in the Central Jail of Lefkosia
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.
August 31: EOKA attack the General Hospital of Nicosia and free Polykarpos Georkadjis who was being held by the British.