The Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston was a Greek Cypriot nationalist guerilla organization that fought a campaign for the end of British rule in Cyprus, and for eventual union with Greece.
Georgios Grivas, also known by his nickname Digenis, was the Cypriot founder and leader of the Greek and Greek Cypriot paramilitary organisations Organization X (1942–1949), EOKA (1955–1959) and EOKA B (1971–1974).
Cyprus was part of the British Empire, under military occupation from 1914 to 1925, and a Crown colony from 1925 to 1960. Cyprus became an independent nation in 1960.
Nikos Sampson was a Cypriot journalist, militant and politician, who was installed as acting President of Cyprus during the 1974 coup.
The Turkish invasion of Cyprus began on 20 July 1974 and progressed in two phases over the following month. Taking place upon a background of intercommunal violence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and in response to a Greek junta-sponsored Cypriot coup d'état five days earlier, it led to the Turkish capture and occupation of the northern part of the island.
Kissonerga is a village in South West Cyprus, about 8 km north of Paphos, in a region notable for the cultivation of banana plantations, an area known as the Ktima Lowlands. In 1980 the population of the village was 700 people.
Vassos Lyssarides was a Cypriot politician and physician who was a central figure in the politics of Cyprus after the island's independence.
The Battle of Spilia is the name given in Greek Cypriot sources to an engagement of the Cyprus Emergency that took place in the neighbourhood of the Cypriot village of Spilia on either 11 or 12 December 1955. The engagement involved approximately 12 members of Georgios Grivas’s EOKA group and a 40 man detachment of the 45 Commando Royal Marines. In British military sources this is known as part of a wider operation known as ‘Foxhunter’ that was tasked with breaking up the EOKA presence in the Troodos mountains and capturing EOKA leader Georgios Grivas.
Field Marshal Allan Francis Harding, 1st Baron Harding of Petherton,, known as John Harding, was a senior British Army officer who fought in both the First World War and the Second World War, served in the Malayan Emergency, and later advised the British government on the response to the Mau Mau Uprising. He also served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), the professional head of the British Army, and was Governor of Cyprus from 1955 to 1957 during the Cyprus Emergency. In both Kenya and Cyprus his rule was controversial and authoritarian, based on persecutions and executions.
Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.
The Cyprus Emergency was a conflict fought in British Cyprus between November 1955 and March 1959.
The High Bright Sun is a 1964 British action film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Dirk Bogarde, George Chakiris and Susan Strasberg. It is set in Cyprus during the EOKA uprising against British rule in the 1950s. It was based on a 1962 novel by Ian Stuart Black.
The Cyprus Times, also known at The Times of Cyprus, was an English-language newspaper published in Larnaca, in Cyprus from 1880, following the island becoming a British protectorate in 1878. It was founded by Edward Henry Vizetelly, who also acted as its first editor. Vizetelly had been a war correspondent for the British newspaper The Daily News, and The New York Times.
Charles Foley (1908–1995) was an Indian-born British journalist.
The 1 April Attacks were a series of attacks across Cyprus in 1955 by the Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston (EOKA) which led to the start of the Cyprus Emergency. Multiple British locations were attacked after midnight by EOKA members. This attack was accompanied by the distribution of leaflets across Cyprus.
The Police Station Attacks were a series of guerrilla style attacks by the EOKA on police stations in Cyprus during June 1955 which led to the start of the Cyprus Emergency. The attacks took place:
The Kyrenia Castle Escape took place early in the Cyprus Emergency. A number of the EOKA were being held prisoner at Kyrenia Castle and on 23 September 1955, sixteen of them escaped by climbing down sheets tied to be a rope.
The Nicosia Cinema Bombing took place on 24 May 1955. A cinema in Nicosia was bombed by the EOKA as part of an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate British governor Sir Robert Armitage. The bomb went off a few yards from where Armitage had been sitting a few minutes earlier; however by the time of the explosion most of the cinema had been vacated. The cinema had been screening the movie Forbidden Cargo on Empire Day as a fundraiser for the British Legion Fund.
The Battle of Liopetri was a minor engagement that took place on 1–2 September 1958 as part of the Cyprus Emergency. British soldiers in the village of Liopetri were attacked by an EOKA team of four who were subsequently killed in the ensuing fire fight.
The Battle of Famagusta was a military engagement during the Cyprus Emergency. It involved a battle between British troops and members of EOKA.
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