| Spyros Markezinis | |
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| Spyros Markezinis. | |
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| First | Name: Spyros Markezinis |
| Second | Position: President of Greece (1959 - 1963, 1963-1967) |
| Third | Nationality: Greek |
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| Fourth | Party: Greek Rally |
| Fifth | Born: April 22, 1909 |
| Sixth | Died: January 4, 2000 |
Spyros Markezinis was the second Greek President. He took the leadership of the Greek Rally Party after Papagos and won the 1959 elections. He allowed USA to establish military bases in the Agean Sea and Crete and bought many USA ships and planes. He developed even more the industry, starting the Greek Economic Miracle, which would lead to Greece becoming the world's ten largest economy in 1974.
In 1962, with USA support, he started sending Greek Army Officers and Troops to USBR Macedonia to begin a Second Macedonian struggle. The Macedonian Figthers rallied the Greek population. Despite several protests from USBR, Greece send more and more money and supplies to the Macedonian Fighters.
In 1963, Markezinis won again the elections. In 1964, USBR declared war on Greece. The war at first was a stalemate, fought mainly in Thessaly. The Greeks made good use of their navy and planes and caused huge casualities to the Balkanians, but the USBR outnumbered Greece almost 5 to 1 and so, even with USA support, the Greeks were not able to push into Macedonia until far later in the war.
In 1965, because of the Soviet Civil War, the USSR stopped supporting USBR and USA increased it's support of Greece and so in June 12 1965, 240,000 Greeks managed to break throught the enemy lines, crush the 340,000 USBR defenders and push into Macedonia. However, the end of the Soviet Civil War in August, stopped Greece from making more gains.
In 1967, Greece signed a peace treaty in which it was recognized by the USBR that Macedonia became again part of Greece. Markezinis gave the leadership of the party to Konstantinos Karamanlis, since the Constitution did now allow someone to run for a third time as President.
He died in Athens, in 2000.