The history of Crete goes back to the 7th millennium BC, preceding the ancient Minoan civilization by more than four millennia. The Minoan civilization was the first civilization in Europe.
During the See more

The collapse of the Mycenaean civilization was followed by the appearance of the first Greek city-states in the 9th century BC and the epics of Homer in the 8th century BC. Some of the Dorian cities that prospered on Crete during those times are Kydonia See more

Mithridates VI Eupator, ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia, waged war against the Roman Republic in the year 88 BCE in order to halt the advance of Roman hegemony in the Aegean Sea region. Mithridates VI sought to dominate See more

Excavations in South Crete in 2008–2009 revealed stone tools at least 130,000 years old, including bifacial ones of Acheulean type. This was a sensational discovery, as the previously accepted earliest sea crossing in the Mediterranean was thought to occur around … See more

Crete was the centre of Europe's most ancient civilization, the Minoans. Tablets inscribed in Linear A have been found in numerous sites in Crete, and a few in the Aegean islands. The … See more

In the Classical and Hellenistic period Crete fell into a pattern of combative city-states, harboring pirates. In the late 4th century BC, the aristocratic order began to collapse due to … See more

In the partition of the Byzantine empire after the capture of Constantinople by the armies of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Crete was eventually acquired by Venice, which held it for more than four centuries (the "Kingdom of Candia").
The most important … See more