Greece setting of A Midsummer Night’s Dream By: Fiona Callaway

Facts Capital- Athens Population (as of 2005)- 10,668,354. Languages- Greek 99% (official), English, French. Government Type- parliamentary republic; monarchy rejected by referendum 8 December 1974.

Cont. Natural Resourses- lignite, petroleum, iron ore, bauxite, lead, zinc, nickel, magnesite, marble, salt, and hydropower potential. The Greek Flag- It is blue and white, with an equal-armed cross in the upper corner and nine alternating blue and white stripes. Approximately 16.5 million tourists visit Greece each year.

Reading and Writing total population that know how- 97.5% total males that know how- 98.6% total females that know how % Mostly ages 15 and over.

Most Famous Greeks Plato (c BC)-He was a brilliant student of Socrates Aristotle ( BC)- discovered many things in science and biology Parmenides-watched an eclipse of the Moon in about 470 BC, and noticed that the Earth's shadow was curved. Archimedes-was a mathematician and an engineer. He designed a machine, called the Archimedean screw Pythagoras-was a mathematician. Can find out about Pythagoras' theorem on right-angled triangles. Alexander the Great-He was called 'the Great' because he conquered more lands than anyone before him and became the overall ruler of Greece.

Religious Background From the Byzantine Empire, Greece inherited Eastern Orthodox Christianity. There was "one holy catholic and apostolic church" until the Great Schism in 1054, when the church was separated into Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic. The Orthodox Church was the only institution where the Greeks could look as a focus.

Cont. For nearly 400 years ( ), Greece was under Ottoman rule. Many times, members of the clergy were executed in reprisal when the Greeks disobeyed orders or tried to revolt. he most serious disability for the Christian population was the janissary levy. At irregular intervals, Christian families in the Balkans were required to deliver to the Ottoman authorities a given proportion of their most intelligent and handsome male children to serve as elite troops, after they were forced to convert to Islam.

Background Ottoman rule prevented Greece from experiencing the important historical movements of the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. The intellectuals who had fled to the West, established intellectual centers wherever they settled. They began to publish Greek books in the sixteenth century and send them to the enslaved Greeks to educate and enlighten them.

Cont. The eighteenth century saw the emergence of a Greek mercantile middle class in the Ottoman Empire. Greece became a state in 1830, following the War for Independence in The Greeks were the first of the subjugated peoples of the Ottoman Empire to gain full independence. The Great Powers also decided that Greece should be a monarchy. They chose a 17-year-old Bavarian prince, Otto, as king.

Quiz Who were they taken over by? Who did they pronounce their king? What is the capital? True or False: Greece was ruled of over for 400 years? Name one of the most famous Greeks.