The Battle of Crete was fought during the Second World War on the Greek island of Crete. It began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany began an airborne invasion of Crete. Greek and other Allied forces, along with Cretan civilians, defended the island. After one day of fighting, the Germans had suffered heavy casualties and the Allied troops were confident that they would defeat the invasion. The next day, through communication failures, Allied tactical hesitation and German offensive operations, Maleme Airfield in western Crete fell, enabling the Germans to land reinforcements and overwhelm the defensive positions on the north of the island. Allied forces withdrew to the south coast. More than half were evacuated by the British Royal Navy and the remainder surrendered or joined the Cretan resistance. The defence of Crete evolved into a costly naval engagement; by the end of the campaign the Royal Navy's eastern Mediterranean strength had been reduced to only two battleships and three cruisers.
OFI Football Club, is a Greek association football club based in Heraklion, on the island of Crete. It is a part of the OFI multi sports club. Outside Greece, the club is generally known as OFI Crete, however, the name Crete is not actually part of the club's official title. The team competes in the Super League, the top division of the Greek football league system, and hosts home games at the Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium.
The Heraklion Archaeological Museum is a museum located in Heraklion on Crete. It is one of the greatest museums in Greece and the best in the world for Minoan art, as it contains the most notable and complete collection of artefacts of the Minoan civilization of Crete.
Cretan wine is wine from the Greek island of Crete. It has a long history since wine was certainly being made by the Minoans since the Bronze Age. Wines from Crete are not listed among those specially prized in classical Greece, but under the Roman Empire in the 2nd century AD Crete was known for a sweet wine, protropos, which was exported to Italy. In late medieval Europe, in the 14th to 16th centuries, vino di Candia and Crete are wine names listed as highly valued in several sources from western and northern Europe; they were sweet and "hot" wines. Within the current classification of Greek wine there are several Cretan appellations, including Peza, Archanes, Dafnes and Sitia.
The Cretan resistance was a resistance movement against the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and Italy by the residents of the Greek island of Crete during World War II. Part of the larger Greek Resistance, it lasted from 20 May 1941, when the German Wehrmacht invaded the island in the Battle of Crete, until the spring of 1945 when they surrendered to the British. For the first time during World War II, attacking German forces faced in Crete a substantial resistance from the local population. Cretan civilians picked off paratroopers or attacked them with knives, axes, scythes or even bare hands. As a result, many casualties were inflicted upon the invading German paratroopers during the battle.
Chionodoxa, known as glory-of-the-snow, is a small genus of bulbous perennial flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae, often included in Scilla. The genus is endemic to the eastern Mediterranean, specifically Crete, Cyprus and Turkey. The blue, white or pink flowers appear early in the year making them valuable garden ornamentals. The common name of the genus is based on the habit of flowering in high alpine zones when the snow melts in spring.
The Museum of Cretan Ethnology is a museum in Voroi, in the municipal unit of Faistos, Heraklion regional unit, southern Crete, Greece. Established as an institution in 1973, the museum was built under the French architect Georges Henri Rivière, the creator of the Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires of Paris, between 1977 and 1982 under sponsorship of the Greek Ministry of Culture and opened formally in 1988. However, it has been an important centre of research since 1980 in studying the civilizations of Crete from 1000 to the present day. The museum contains artifacts found all over Crete from the Minoan period, the Archaic and Byzantine, although a significant part of the collection is from the period of Turkish occupation. The museum is particularly rich in items related to agriculture, stock breeding, pottery, basketry, wood carving, architecture and music and dancing.
The Damasta sabotage was an attack by Cretan resistance fighters led by British Special Operations Executive officer Captain Bill Stanley Moss MC against German occupation forces in World War II. The attack occurred on 8 August 1944 near the village of Damasta and was aimed to prevent the Germans from assaulting the village of Anogeia.
Chionodoxa nana or dwarf glory-of-the-snow is a bulbous perennial from Crete flowering in early spring with flowers in shades of lilac blue. After flowering, it goes into dormancy until the next spring.
The Cretan derby, also called Heraklion Derby or The Battle of Crete is an association football rivalry between Ergotelis and OFI, the 2 teams that have represented the city of Heraklion, Crete in the Greek Super League. Although the term "Cretan derby" has been used to describe almost every match-up between football clubs from Crete on any level of the Greek football league system, the OFI-Ergotelis rivalry is the most iconic, since it involves the two most prestigious clubs on the island and its roots can be traced back to the early days of Greek professional football.
Rethymno is a city of approximately 40,000 people in Greece, the capital of Rethymno regional unit on the island of Crete, a former Latin Catholic bishopric as Retimo(–Ario) and former Latin titular see.
The 1630 Crete earthquake reportedly occurred at around 09:00 on 9 March 1630 in the Kythira Strait, off the coast of Crete. Until the mid 1990s, the earthquake had traditionally been referred to as the 1629 Crete earthquake, which had been documented to have occurred at about 10:00 on Saturday 27 February 1629. Extensive research by several experts on the subject since the late 1980s has revealed that a calculation error mis-dated the occurrence by several days and a year.
Alexios Alexis (1692-1786) was a soldier from Lassithi Plateau on the island of Crete. He played a major role in the Cretan wars for independence. His father was the nobleman Misser Alexis. Alexios led a large and eminent family and some of his descendents reached high ranks in Greece and abroad, including Nicholas Alexios Alexis, and the Army General Ioannis Sotiris Alexakis.
Nicholas Alexios Alexis (1761-1818) was a key figure and a resistance leader in the independence struggle in Crete. He was born in Marmaketo, a village of Lassithi Plateau, in 1761 when Crete was part of the Ottoman sovereignty. He was a son of Alexios Alexis (1692-1786) and a grandson of the nobleman Misser Alexis. Nicholas lived under Turkish domination; Crete was a territory of the Venetian Republic up to 1669 and an Ottoman territory thereafter.
The Cretan Revolt of 1878 was an insurrection of the Cretan people against the Ottoman occupation of the island. This insurrection is part of a larger movement for independence from the Ottoman Empire, which Crete was part of since the middle of the 17th century.
Stylianos Alexiou was an archaeologist, philologist and university professor.
