Downfall
On April 21, 1967 the elected government was overthrown by a group of middle-ranking army officers led by Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos and a military dictatorship was established. The regime, known as The Regime of the Colonels, forced King Constantine II into accepting it as legitimate. On December 13, 1967, the King launched a counter-coup but it failed and he, together with his family, fled to exile in Rome and soon after to London.
On 1 June 1973, Constantine II was declared deposed by the military junta and Papadopoulos appointed himself as President of the Republic. On 29 July 1973, a questionable plebiscite sought to confirm the abolition of the monarchy. The dictatorship fell in August 1974 and the new regime held a fresh plebiscite on 8 December 1974, which confirmed the abolition of the monarchy by a vote of 69% to 30%. The deposed King has never questioned the validity of this referendum, as referenda establishing monarchy in Greece (1863, 1935) were also accepted by his predecessors.
Read more about this topic: Greek Royal Family
Famous quotes containing the word downfall:
“Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart’s drama and the negative meaning of history.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)