Arrival
The family came to the throne after the overthrow in 1862 of the first king of the independent Greek state, Otto of Bavaria. In a referendum, the Greeks elected Prince Alfred of the United Kingdom as their new king, but the candidature was rejected by the Great Powers, who refused to permit any member of their respective royal families to ascend to the Greek throne. A search for other candidates ensued, and eventually, the Greeks offered the throne to Prince William of the Danish Glücksburg dynasty, who had received six votes in the referendum. The Greek National Assembly proclaimed him king as George I, and he arrived in Greece in October 1863.
The royal family saw Greece experience several upheavals including the Balkan Wars, World War I, World War II (during which Greece experienced Axis occupation), the Greek Civil War, and the Greek military junta of 1967–1974. Following the National Schism during World War I and subsequent Asia Minor Disaster, the monarchy was deposed in March 1924 and replaced by the Second Hellenic Republic, which lasted until overthrown by a royalist coup d'état in October 1935.
Read more about this topic: Greek Royal Family
Famous quotes containing the word arrival:
“National literature does not mean much these days; now is the age of world literature, and every one must contribute to hasten the arrival of that age.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure for the metaphysical journey.”
—Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940)