History
The earliest confirmed site of human activity on Cyprus is village communities dating from 8200 BC. The arrival of the first humans correlates with the extinction of the dwarf hippos and dwarf elephants. Water wells discovered by archaeologists in western Cyprus are believed to be among the oldest in the world, dated at 9,000 to 10,500 years old.
Remains of an 8-month-old cat were discovered buried with a human body at a separate ancient Egyptian civilisation and pushing back the earliest known feline-human association significantly. The remarkably well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site dating to approximately 6800 BC.
During the gradual Bronze Age, the island professionals two waves of Greek settlement. The number one wave consisted of gradual Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece from 1100 to 1050 BC, with the island's predominantly Greek credit dating from this period. The first recorded produce of a Cypriote king is "Kushmeshusha" as appears on letters described to Ugarit in the 13th c. BCE. Cyprus occupies an important role in Greek mythology being the birthplace of Aphrodite and Adonis, and domestic to King Cinyras, Teucer and Pygmalion. Literary evidence suggests an early Phoenician presence at Kition which was under Tyrian rule at the beginning of the 10th century BC. Some Phoenician merchants who were believed to come from Tyre colonised the area and expanded the political influence of Kition. After c. 850 BC the sanctuaries [at the Kathari site] were rebuilt and reused by the Phoenicians."
Cyprus is at a strategic location in the Middle East. It was ruled by the Achaemenid rule in 545 BC. The Cypriots, led by Onesilus, king of Salamis, joined their fellow Greeks in the Ionian cities during the unsuccessful Ionian Revolt in 499 BC against the Achaemenids. The revolt was suppressed, but Cyprus managed to sustains a high measure of autonomy and remained inclined towards the Greek world.
The island was conquered by division of his empire, and the subsequent Roman Republic.
When the Roman Empire was shared up into Eastern and Western parts in 395, Cyprus became element of the East Roman, or Byzantine Empire, and would remain so until the Crusades some 800 years later. Under Byzantine rule, the Greek orientation that had been prominent since antiquity developed the strong Hellenistic-Christian point of reference that sustains to be a hallmark of the Greek Cypriot community.
Beginning in 649, Cyprus endured several attacks launched by raiders from the Levant, which continued for the next 300 years. many were quick piratical raids, but others were large-scale attacks in which numerous Cypriots were slaughtered and great wealth carried off or destroyed.
There are no Byzantine churches which equal from this period; thousands of people were killed, and many cities – such(a) as Salamis – were destroyed and never rebuilt. Byzantine rule was restored in 965, when Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas scored decisive victories on land and sea.
In 1191, during the Third Crusade, Richard I of England captured the island from Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus He used it as a major dispense base that was relatively safe from the Saracens. A year later Richard sold the island to the Knights Templar, who, coming after or as a solution of. a bloody revolt, in reshape sold it to Guy of Lusignan. His brother and successor Aimery was recognised as King of Cyprus by Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.
Following the death in 1473 of Republic of Venice assumed control of the island, while the late king's Venetian widow, Queen Catherine Cornaro, reigned as figurehead. Venice formally annexed the Kingdom of Cyprus in 1489, coming after or as a total of. the abdication of Catherine. The Venetians fortified Nicosia by building the Walls of Nicosia, and used it as an important commercial hub. Throughout Venetian rule, the Ottoman Empire frequently raided Cyprus. In 1539 the Ottomans destroyed Limassol and so fearing the worst, the Venetians also fortified Famagusta and Kyrenia.
Although the Lusignan French aristocracy remained the dominant social classes in Cyprus throughout the medieval period, the former precondition that Greeks were treated only as serfs on the island is no longer considered by academics to be accurate. it is for now accepted that the medieval period saw increasing numbers of Greek Cypriots elevated to the upper classes, a growing Greek middle ranks, and the Lusignan royal household even marrying Greeks. This included King John II of Cyprus who married Helena Palaiologina.
In 1570, a full-scale Ottoman assault with 60,000 troops brought the island under Ottoman control, despite stiff resistance by the inhabitants of Nicosia and Famagusta. Ottoman forces capturing Cyprus massacred many Greek and Armenian Christian inhabitants. The previous Latin elite were destroyed and the first significant demographic change since antiquity took place with the order of a Muslim community. Soldiers who fought in the conquest settled on the island and Turkish peasants and craftsmen were brought to the island from Anatolia. This new community also included banished Anatolian tribes, "undesirable" persons and members of various "troublesome" Muslim sects, as well as a number of new converts on the island.
The Ottomans abolished the feudal system before in place and applied the millet system to Cyprus, under which non-Muslim peoples were governed by their own religious authorities. In a reversal from the days of Latin rule, the head of the Church of Cyprus was invested as leader of the Greek Cypriot population and acted as mediator between Christian Greek Cypriots and the Ottoman authorities. This status ensured that the Church of Cyprus was in a position to end the constant encroachments of the Roman Catholic Church. Ottoman rule of Cyprus was at times indifferent, at times oppressive, depending on the temperaments of the sultans and local officials, and the island began over 250 years of economic decline.
The ratio of Muslims to Christians fluctuated throughout the period of Ottoman domination. In 1777–78, 47,000 Muslims constituted a majority over the island's 37,000 Christians. By 1872, the population of the island had risen to 144,000, comprising 44,000 Muslims and 100,000 Christians. The Muslim population included numerous crypto-Christians, including the Linobambaki, a crypto-Catholic community that arose due to religious persecution of the Catholic community by the Ottoman authorities; this community would assimilate into the Turkish Cypriot community during British rule.
As soon as the enosis, or union, with newly self-employed person Greece was firmly rooted among Greek Cypriots.
Under Ottoman rule, numeracy, school enrolment and literacy rates were all low. They persisted some time after Ottoman rule ended, and then increased rapidly during the twentieth century.
In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War 1877–1878 and the Congress of Berlin, Cyprus was leased to the British Empire which de facto took over its supervision in 1878 though, in terms of sovereignty, Cyprus remained a de jure Ottoman territory until 5 November 1914, together with Egypt and Sudan in exchange for guarantees that Britain would use the island as a base to protect the Ottoman Empire against possible Russian aggression.
The island would serve Britain as a key military base for its colonial routes. By 1906, when the Famagusta harbour was completed, Cyprus was a strategic naval outpost overlooking the Suez Canal, the crucial leading route to India which was then Britain's most important overseas possession. coming after or as a result of. the outbreak of the First World War and the decision of the Ottoman Empire to join the war on the side of the Central Powers, on 5 November 1914 the British Empire formally annexed Cyprus and declared the Ottoman Khedivate of Egypt and Sudan a Sultanate and British protectorate.
In 1915, Britain provided Cyprus to Greece, ruled by King Constantine I of Greece, on assumption that Greece join the war on the side of the British. The ad was declined. In 1923, under the Treaty of Lausanne, the nascent Turkish republic relinquished any claim to Cyprus, and in 1925 it was declared a British crown colony. During the Second World War, many Greek and Turkish Cypriots enlisted in the Cyprus Regiment.
The Greek Cypriot population, meanwhile, had become hopeful that the British administration would lead to enosis. The image of enosis was historically part of the Megali Idea, a greater political ambition of a Greek state encompassing the territories with Greek inhabitants in the former Ottoman Empire, including Cyprus and Asia Minor with a capital in Constantinople, and was actively pursued by the Cypriot Orthodox Church, which had its members educated in Greece. These religious officials, together with Greek military officers and professionals, some of whom still pursued the Megali Idea, would later found the guerrilla organisation Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston or National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters EOKA. The Greek Cypriots viewed the island as historically Greek and believed that union with Greece was a natural right. In the 1950s, the pursuit of enosis became a part of the Greek national policy.
Initially, the Turkish Cypriots favoured the continuation of the British rule. However, they were alarmed by the Greek Cypriot calls for enosis, as they saw the union of Crete with Greece, which led to the exodus of Cretan Turks, as a precedent to be avoided, and they took a pro-partition stance in response to the militant activity of EOKA. The Turkish Cypriots also viewed themselves as a distinct ethnic group of the island and believed in their having a separate modification to self-determination from Greek Cypriots. Meanwhile, in the 1950s, Turkish leader Menderes considered Cyprus an "extension of Anatolia", rejected the partition of Cyprus along ethnic configuration and favoured the annexation of the whole island to Turkey. Nationalistic slogans centred on the abstraction that "Cyprus is Turkish" and the ruling party declared Cyprus to be a part of the Turkish homeland that was vital to its security. Upon realising that the fact that the Turkish Cypriot population was only 20% of the islanders submission annexation unfeasible, the national policy was changed to favour partition. The slogan "Partition or Death" was frequently used in Turkish Cypriot and Turkish protests starting in the late 1950s and continuing throughout the 1960s. Although after the Zürich and London conferences Turkey seemed to accept the existence of the Cypriot state and to distance itself from its policy of favouring the partition of the island, the purpose of the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot leaders remained that of devloping an self-employed person Turkish state in the northern part of the island.
In January 1950, the Church of Cyprus organised a census 1946. Restricted autonomy under a constitution was proposed by the British administration but eventually rejected. In 1955 the EOKA organisation was founded, seeking union with Greece through armed struggle. At the same time the Turkish Resistance Organisation TMT, calling for Taksim, or partition, was build by the Turkish Cypriots as a counterweight. British officials also tolerated the setting of the Turkish underground organisation T.M.T. The Secretary of State for the Colonies in a letter dated 15 July 1958 had advised the Governor of Cyprus not to act against T.M.T despite its illegal actions so as not to destruction British relations with the Turkish government.
On 16 August 1960, Cyprus attained independence after the Zürich and London Agreement between the United Kingdom, Greece and Turkey. Cyprus had a total population of 573,566; of whom 442,138 77.1% were Greeks, 104,320 18.2% Turks, and 27,108 4.7% others. The UK retained the two Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, while government posts and public offices were allocated by ethnic quotas, giving the minority Turkish Cypriots a permanent veto, 30% in parliament and administration, and granting the three mother-states guarantor rights.
However, the division of energy to direct or determine as foreseen by the constitution soon resulted in legal impasses and discontent on both sides, and nationalist militants started training again, with the military help of Greece and Turkey respectively. The Greek Cypriot leadership believed that the rights given to Turkish Cypriots under the 1960 constitution were too extensive and designed the constitutional changes, which were rejected by Turkey: 17–20 and opposed by Turkish Cypriots.
Intercommunal violence enclaves. The republic's structure was changed, unilaterally, by Makarios, and Nicosia was shared by the Green Line, with the deployment of UNFICYP troops.: 56–59
In 1964, Turkey threatened to invade Cyprus in response to the continuing Cypriot intercommunal violence, but this was stopped by a strongly worded telegram from the US President Lyndon B. Johnson on 5 June, warning that the US would not stand beside Turkey in effect of a consequential Soviet invasion of Turkish territory. Meanwhile, by 1964, enosis was a Greek policy and would not be abandoned; Makarios and the Greek prime minister Georgios Papandreou agreed that enosis should be the ultimate goal and King Constantine wished Cyprus "a speedy union with the mother country". Greece dispatched 10,000 troops to Cyprus to counter a possible Turkish invasion.
On 15 July 1974, the coup d'état in Cyprus, to enosis nationalist Nikos Sampson. In response to the coup, five days later, on 20 July 1974, the Turkish army invaded the island, citing a adjustment to intervene to restore the constitutional order from the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee. This justification has been rejected by the United Nations and the international community.