March 25 is both a national (revolution against the Turks) and religious holiday (Annunciation) of the Greeks (Hellines)

 

March 25, the Independence Day in Greece

March 25 is both a national (revolution against the Turks) and religious holiday (Annunciation). March 25 is the nameday for Vangelis or Evangelos and Vangelio or Evangelia or Eva.

There is a school flag parade in every town and village and a big armed forces parade in Athens , the capital of Greece .

The Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks in 1453 and the Greeks remained under the Ottoman rule for nearly 400 years. During this time their language, their religion and their sense of identity remained strong.

On March 25, 1821 the bishop Germanos of Patras raised the Greek flag at the Monastery of Agia Lavra in Peloponnese and one more revolution started against the Turks. The people of Greece shouted "Freedom or Death" and they fought the War of Independence for 9 years (1821-1829) until a small part of modern Greece was finally liberated and it was declared an independent nation.

The struggle for the liberation of all the lands inhabited by Greeks continued. In 1864, the Ionian islands were added to Greece; in 1881 parts of Epirus and Thessaly. Crete, the islands of the Eastern Aegean and Macedonia were added in 1913 and Western Thrace in 1919. After World War II the Dodecanese islands were also returned to Greece.

Read More:

- Epidauros, January 15, 1822. First National Assembly of Independence: Why we started the war against the Turks.

- At the end of April 1825, Ibrahim Pascha began the siege of Messolongi, a town in central Greece. Finally, in the night of the 10th to 11th of April 1826 the defenders of the town, which were worn out by the twelve-month siege and the lack of food, attempted a desperate and at the same time heroic exodus. Read about the last days before the exodus

- The Treaty of London for Greek Independence, the first official international act which acknowledged Greece as an independent state

- Lord Byron, the most famous of the philellenes (friends of Greece)

- Important persons of the Greek Independence War: Theodoros Kolokotronis, Georgios Karaiskakis, Constantinos Kanaris, Makriyannis, Manto Mavrogenous, Laskarina Boumboulina, Andreas Miaoulis, Nikitaras, Papaflesas or Gregorios Dikaios.

- Memoirs (Excerpts) of General Makriyannis

- History of the Greek Constitution from the revolution until today (1821 - 2001)

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The case of Crete:

The powerful administrative and military presence of the Ottoman Empire, the populous Muslim community which constituted almost the half of the population and the absence of preparations by the Philiki Etaireia were not in favour of a successful outbreak of the Greek Revolution. Nonetheless, from the end of Spring the revolutionary climate started being formed, especially in inapproachable areas of Chania (Sfakia) and Rethymnon (Anogeia). The Ottoman authorities soon learnt about these movements and proceeded with atrocities against the Christians obviously to intimidate and prevent the outbreak of a revolt. These actions had the contrary result and soon armed conflicts took place in different parts of the island. Sfakia, Anogeia and other mountainous areas constituted the main revolutionary centres and despite the fact that the Ottoman forces continued to control all the forts and strong strategic points of Crete, there was still tension until the first months of 1824. However, from the summer of the previous year (1823) Egyptian troops had landed on Crete and within the next months managed to resist by all means, confronting with great violence the Christian population. Since, the ports of Crete were used by Ibrahim Pasha as naval bases for the operations in the Peloponnese.

After more than three years, immediately after the destruction of the Egyptian fleet at Navarino (October 1827), the Greek Revolutionary Administration first and then the governor Ioannis Kapodistrias favoured the creation of revolutionary centres in different regions so that these could be included in the boundaries of the Greek state which were under negotiation. Thus, the uprising in Crete was boosted and upto the end of 1828 successful operations legalized the Greek claims on the island although they could not achieve military prevalence. Two years later the Egyptian powers repressed once again the revolt in Crete.

In the following decades more revolts followed: 1833, 1841, 1858, 1866, 1878, 1895.

Crete was liberated in 1897 and it remained an Autonomous Principality under prince George of Greece.

On December 1, 1913 the Union of Crete with Greece was finally achieved.

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- About the Greek flag: "Freedom or Death" ( Eleftheria i Thanatos) was the motto during the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire. It is believed that the nine lines of the flag reflects the number of syllables in the greek phrase "Eleftheria i Thanatos" = Freedom or Death.

The line pattern was chosen because of their similarity with the wavy sea that surounds the shores of Greece.The interchange of blue and white colors makes the Hellenic Flag on a windy day to look like the Aegean Sea. The Greek Square Cross that rests on the upper left-side ofthe flag demonstrates the respect and the devotion that Greek people have for the Greek Orthodox Church and signifies the important role of Christianity in the formation of the modern Hellenic Nation. During the dark years of the Ottoman rule, the Greek Orthodox Church helped the enslaved Greeks to retain their cultural characteristics: the Greek language, the Byzantine religion and generally the Greek ethnic identity. Today, Christianity is still the dominant religion among Greeks. Therefore the existence of the Cross is justified.

LINK:

• More about the Greek Flag
• Greek Flags from the past

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- The Greek National Anthem: Hymn to Liberty (Imnos stin Eleftheria)

in Greek	Latin Transliteration	English Translation
	Se gnorizo apo tin kopsi, Tou spathiou tin tromeri, Se gnorizo apo tin opsi, Pou me via metra tin yi. Ap' ta kokala vgalmeni, Ton Ellinon ta iera, Ke san prota andriomeni, Haire, o haire, Eleftheria! (repeat previous two lines three times)	We knew thee of old, Oh, divinely restored, By the lights of thine eyes, And the light of thy Sword, From the graves of our slain, Shall thy valour prevail, As we greet thee again- Hail, Liberty! Hail! (repeat previous two lines three times)

Lyrics: Dionysios Solomos, 1824 - Music: Nikolaos Mantzaros, 1828 - Translation: Rudyard Kipling in 1918

Italian translation of the Greek National Anthem by Cesare Sofianopulo (Trieste 1951) Ti conosco dal tremendo taglio vivo dell'acciar, ti conosco: va scorrendo l'occhio tuo la terra e il mar. Sorta fuor dalle ossa sante degli Elleni e come già in passato fosti aitante, salve, salve, o Libertà!

Solomos & Mantzaros

LINKS

• Listen to the Greek National Anthem in midi format
• Get a free Greek National Anthem ringtone for your Nokia cell phone
• More information about the Greek National Anthem and a different, probably more precise translation of it
• Take a look at photos from the Independence Day parade in Heraklion

The brain of bald eagles and other birds were damaged by neurotoxins produced by cyanobacteria that came into contact with bromide

 

A lethal combination

Although many human activities have clear negative effects on the natural world, there are also unforeseen consequences. Bald eagle mass death events in the southeastern United States may be one such downstream effect of human activity. After considerable effort, Breinlinger et al. identified the cause of these events as an insidious combination of factors. Colonization of waterways by an invasive, introduced plant provided a substrate for the growth of a previously unidentified cyanobacterium. Exposure of this cyanobacterium to bromide, typically anthropogenic in origin, resulted in the production of a neurotoxin that both causes neuropathy in animals that prey on the plants and also bioaccumulates to kill predators such as bald eagles.

 Vacuolar myelinopathy (VM) is a neurological disease characterized by widespread vacuolization in the white matter of the brain. First diagnosed in 1994 in bald eagles, it has since spread throughout the southeastern United States. In addition to avian species such as waterfowl and birds of prey, VM has also been found to affect amphibians, reptiles, and fish. Despite intense research efforts, the cause of this mysterious disease has been elusive. Neither contagious agents nor xenobiotics were detected in deceased animals, but field and laboratory studies demonstrated that VM can be transferred through the food chain from herbivorous fish and wildlife to birds of prey.

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Athens, Ga. – University of Georgia researchers have formally identified and named toxic cyanobacteria that have been killing American bald eagles across the Southeast.

After years of studying the cyanobacteria coating the leaves of water plants in lakes, researchers in UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources have determined that it is a previously undiscovered species in a new genus. In a paper published recently in the journal Phytotaxa, they named it Aetokthonos hydrillicola and lay out evidence that it is responsible for the eagle deaths.

“This new species has a growth form and gene sequence so unusual that it does not fit into any of the existing families,” said Susan Wilde, the Warnell professor who has been leading the research. “The naming convention for cyanobacteria is to use Greek for the genus—Aetokthonos translates to ‘eagle-killer.’ The species name is always Latin, and hydrillicola means ‘lives on hydrilla.'”

Beginning in the mid-1990s, American bald eagles started to die off in noticeable numbers from a neurological disease called avian vacuolar myelinopathy. AVM was first found in Arkansas in 1994, but over the past two decades, 160 eagles are known to have died across the Southeast from the disease, including 80 from one Georgia impoundment on the Savannah River, the J. Strom Thurmond Reservoir.

Researchers speculate the death toll is actually much higher because most of the dead birds are never found. And the deaths will continue to rise and spread to new locations, Wilde said, because “the invasive hydrilla and associated cyanobacteria spread to new lakes.”

Animals afflicted with AVM develop brain lesions that impair their motor skills, causing difficulty walking, swimming or flying. Once they consume the toxin, eagles suffer a neurological breakdown with unique holes in the brain and spinal cord, then death.

Wilde realized that in virtually every site where bald eagles died, there was an intense invasion of hydrilla, an invasive aquatic plant native to Asia and considered the ultimate aquatic weed in freshwater locations where it is found. She hypothesized that the eagles were eating tainted prey: waterbirds called coots eat the hydrilla, develop AVM, then pass it on to the eagles who prey on them as food. She just had to figure out why that was happening, and a close examination of the hydrilla led her to the culprit-blue-green algae coating the leaves of the very plants the coots were eating, confirmed at every location where birds were dying from AVM.

Over the past few years, Wilde has been collecting samples from every site of an AVM eagle death, taking slimy hydrilla to her Warnell lab for analysis. She found that Lake Thurmond near Augusta has the highest cyanobacterial concentration of the 20 confirmed AVM sites in six states.

Since 2008, she has been testing these samples using DNA sequencing, light microscopy, epiflourescent microscopy, scanning and transmission electron microscopy and other tests to identify its characteristics. She and her team originally placed the cyanobacteria in the order Stigonematales, but their tests show Aetokthonos hydrillicola is actually in a new genus and is unique even at the family level.

Wilde’s co-authors on the study include Jeffrey Johansen of John Carroll University, Dayton Wilde and Peng Jiang of the UGA department of horticulture, former Warnell student Bradley Bartelme now at EnviroScience, and Rebecca Haynie, a former toxicologist in Wilde’s lab now at the SePRO Corporation.

Aetokthonos hydrillicola’s growth is strange even for cyanobacteria. It forms large colonies that branch out horizontally and vertically on the hydrilla leaves but is not found in the water or sediment. Cyanobacterial blooms that cause wildlife, livestock and even human health concerns are increasing in recent decades and mostly occur in the water column. Another UGA project called CyanoTracker (http://www.cyanotracker.uga.edu/) has started to trace these cyanobacterial water blooms using social media. This new species associated with eagle deaths is hiding on the underside of the aquatic plants, so it is more difficult to detect.

In order to test the theory that the cyanobacteria is producing the neurotoxin that causes disease in birds, the researchers studied many lakes with hydrilla infestations. Some had the new cyanobacterial colonies on the leaves, but many did not. By monitoring both types, the researchers demonstrated only the lakes with Aetokthonos hydrillicola have birds suffering and dying from AVM.

Wilde said now that they have strong evidence for what’s causing the AVM deaths, she will need to find out what environmental conditions are promoting Aetokthonos hydrillicola.

“It’s already in lakes from North Carolina to Texas,” Wilde said, “and if it continues to spread, it could greatly undermine the bald eagle’s recovery and threaten other birds and aquatic wildlife. We already know that grass carp and turtles can develop the same AVM lesions, but we need to find out how it can affect the rest of the aquatic food web.”

A solution to stopping the spread of Aetokthonos hydrillicola might not be easy, but one idea involves releasing grass-eating carp into affected lakes, a tactic that was successful in Lake Murray in South Carolina, where 64,000 carp ate 3,880 acres of the invasive plant over two years. Unfortunately, she said, this non-native, sterile carp consumes other desirable water plants important for fish and wildlife habitat.

The study is available online at http://www.biotaxa.org/Phytotaxa/article/view/phytotaxa.181.5.1.