History
The Ancient Greek city of Amphipolis was founded near the river's entrance to the Aegean, at the site previously known as Ennea Odoi (Nine roads). When Xerxes I of Persia crossed the river during his invasion in 480 BC he buried alive nine young boys and nine maidens as a sacrifice to the river god. The forces of Alexander I of Macedon defeated the remnants of Xerxes' army near Ennea Odoi in 479 BC. In 424 BC the Spartan general Brasidas after crossing the entire Greek peninsula sieged and conquered Amphipolis. The Battle of Kleidion was fought by the river in 1014.
In 1913, the Greek Army was nearly surrounded in the Kresna Gorge of the Struma during the Second Balkan War. The Bulgarians were defeated in the war, however, and the Treaty of Bucharest resulted in significant territorial losses for Bulgaria.
The river valley was part of the Macedonian front in World War I. The ship Struma, which carried Jewish refugees out of Romania in World War II and subsequently sunk in the Black Sea, causing nearly 800 deaths, is named after the river.
Read more about this topic: Struma (river)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)