Crete
Greek island in the eastern Mediterranean Sea; population 630,000 (est. 2005); capital, Heraklion. It is noted for the remains of the Minoan civilization that flourished here in the 2nd millennium bc . Crete played an important role in the Greek struggle for independence from the Turks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that resulted in it becoming administratively part of an independent Greece in 1913.
Roger Weik
2016
