JUST IN: Constantine, the former and last king of Greece, has died at a private hospital in Athens. He was 82.
The family, which had ruled in Greece from 1863 apart from a 12-year republican interlude between 1922-1935, was descended from Prince Christian, later Christian IX of Denmark, of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg branch of the Danish ruling family.
In 1960, aged 20, he and two other Greek sailors won a gold medal in the Dragon Class — now no longer an Olympic class — at the Rome Olympics. While still a prince, Constantine was elected a member of the International Olympic Committee in 1963, and became an honorary member for life in 1974. With many officers toying with the idea of a dictatorship and viewing any non-conservative government as soft on communism, Papandreou wanted to control the ministry of defense and eventually demanded to be appointed defense minister as well. After an acrimonious exchange of letters with Constantine, Papandreou resigned in July 1965.
However, a group of lower-ranking officers, led by colonels, were preparing their own coup and, apprised of Constantine’s plans by a mole, a general whom they had won over to their side, proclaimed a dictatorship on April 21, 1967. The junta appointed a regent and, after an abortive Navy counter-coup in May 1973, abolished the monarchy on June 1, 1973. A July plebiscite, widely considered rigged, confirmed the decision.
Soon after, Karamanlis famously said that the nation had rid itself of a cancerous growth. Constantine said on the day following the referendum that “national unity must take precedence ... I wholeheartedly wish that developments will justify the result of yesterday’s vote.”
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