On Tuesday, two eighteenth-century religious Orthodox icons portraying Jesus and the Virgin Mary were returned to Greece from Lebanon. The valuable icons were stolen from a show in Athens in 2016 and are in very good condition. During an auction, they were confiscated, a judicial source said. The investigation was initiated by Lebanon, but it is not clear who stole them or how they were brought to the country. “The individual who bought the paintings at the Lebanon auction was questioned,” the source said, adding that the purchaser was about to ship them to Germany “to sell them there at an international auction.” The paintings were handed over to Ekaterini…

The Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos marched hand-in-hand with the King in Selma, unlike other church figures, where civil rights marchers protested against segregation and for equal voting rights. Such acts were not common, and certainly not covered, back in 1965. “Iakovos was threatened,” says one close assistant and friend of the archbishop, “but he never thought of his decision twice.” Coretta Scott King, King’s wife, said when Iakovos died in 2005, “At a time when many of the nation’s most prominent clergy were silent, Archbishop Iakovos courageously supported our Freedom Movement and marched with my husband, and throughout his life he continued to support the nonviolent movement against poverty, racism…

A very rare and unusual item has been discovered by Romanian police. Officers have discovered a bronze Corinthian helmet in Last county while doing a house search of suspected stolen goods from archeological sites. The priceless Greek helmet is believed to belong to the National Cultural Heritage and is over 2,500 years old. The two house searches happened in Neamt county, and Iasi county, in the North East area of Romania. After the police searched the the home of a 51-year-old man in Iasi county, Romanian police said the Corinthian bronze helmet appears to date back to the 5th or 6th century BC. In ancient Greece, the Corinthian helmet emerged…

We have discovered some of the most beautiful and rare photos of glorious Greece from 1920. These amazing shots were captured from the lens of the late talented photographer Maynard Owen Williams. This National Geographic photographer from 1919 began travelling to countries from a young age. Williams was a pioneer in travel photography, he wrote numerous foreign articles for the popular and world renowned magazine.There is even an award named after him in his memory: ‘The Maynard Owen Williams Prize” at Kalamazoo College. Maynard Owen Williams was the first National Geographic foreign correspondent in 1919. During his career, Williams travelled to Asia and even witnessed the Russian Revolution. In 1923, Maynard…

We have some great news for history buffs coming in 2021. As we are still living with a raging global pandemic and leaving behind a cinematically boring 2020. We can’t wait for this much anticipated, high profile, Alexander the Great TV series from the production company of Ben Silverman and Propogate. The Alexander the Great series will be shot in Greece and will be great for the country’s troubled economy. This news comes from Deadline. The series will be written by “Vikings” and “The Tudors”, Michael Hirst and Stephen Kronish from “24” and “The Kennedys”. A collab of 2 greats that looks to be awesome and very entertaining. In 2004,…

There has been controversy lately regarding the ethnic origins of Cleopatra. Since the Superwoman actress Gal Gadot announced she will play Cleopatra in an upcoming Hollywood movie many Egyptians and Arabs have been bashing her on social media. Fans of Gal Gadot have defended the Israeli actress on social media saying “Cleopatra was not black or Arab, she was Greek!” History tells us that Cleopatra was not Egyptian as many Egyptians have been claiming on social media. Cleopatra was Macedonian Greek, (no not that little Slavic Vardaska country that is now being called North Macedonia outside of Greece). Cleopatra was from Macedonia, in Northern Greece, and part of the Ptolemaic…

Greece is widely known for their great Olympic athleticism and gold medal wins in many sports like pole vault, basketball, pistol shooting, water polo and more. After all it was the Greeks that invented the Olympics! Ha! There you go! For the last 10 months the world has been on pause and so has the world of Mens Water Polo. It is very refreshing to hear of some positive news after the very difficult and unprecedented year of 2020 we have all been living through with endless negative news. A very BIG BRAVO to the Hellenic Water Polo Team! The amazing Mens Water Polo team for Greece finished in 1st…

The Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Socrates Onassis, was born on January 20th, 1906, in (then Greek) Smyrni (Izmir), (today called Turkey) and passed away on March 15th, 1975, near Paris, France. Onassis established the biggest supertanker and freighter fleet in the world and was one of the richest men at that time. His freight was so gigantic that it was bigger than the navies of many countries. The Onassis family were originally wealthy tobacco merchants, however the family of Onassis lost almost everything when the Turks recaptured Smyrni (modern Izmir), which had become a Greek city after World War I, in 1922. The Greek family, having fled to Greece, sent Onassis…

We all know America’s famous Jazz singer Tony Bennett. Did you know he has Greek roots? The talented Tony Bennett was born in New York on August 3, 1926. He was born Anthony Dominick Benedetto. The popular singer’s paternal ancestors were originally from the small ‘Griko’ town of Podargoni. The small town of Podargoni, in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, is situated in the province of Calabria of Southern Italy (Calabrian Greek: Podàrghoni). This small town near the mountains of Aspromonte is 500m (1,600 feet) above sea level, at the foot of Mount Marrapà. Tony’s father was a Calabrian immigrant who decided to move to the United States for…

We are living in a world of cancel culture and censorship craziness. It seems like nothing is immune these days from the non-stop censorship of Tweets to “fact checked” Facebook posts to the studies of Homer’s epic literature which date back to Ancient Greece. A recent movement is trying to ban classics like Homer’s Odyssey claiming that his views may be sexist and might offend certain people. A high school in Massachusetts has banned ‘The Odyssey’ by Homer. One high school teacher wrote on her social media that she was “very proud that The Odyssey was removed from the curriculum this year”. The Wall Street Journal published a story titled…