One of the single most important dates in Greece’s history is the 17th of November 1973, where more than 3000 students and more than 50000 other people and workers started protesting and demonstrating against the strict, illegal and fascist military regime (junta) Greece had at the time, since 21st of April 1967.
Protests initially started in the Athens Law School on Wednesday 14th of November 1973 and then the people along with the students marched on Solonos Street to the Polytechnic School where they basically stayed locked in till the early hours of Saturday 17th of November 1973.
They were protesting against the illegal military regime that Greece had since April 1967 (more than 6 years at the time).
The main rallying cry of the students was : “Bread-Education-Freedom” (Psomi-Paidia-Eleytheria) along with lots of other slogans for the regime to go and declare free elections, Greece to leave NATO and many anti-USA slogans.
Tanks ready to invade the main university building where more than 3000 students were locked in for 3 days
The regime didn’t really know how to respond to the demonstrators and they finally instructed a military tanks to enter the university by breaking down the door which of course instantly killed many students.
There is even a video showing this exact moment at 03:00am on Saturday 17th of November 1973:
The sad reality of the next day of this operation was 52 people dead, most of them students and between 15-25 years old.
Since then, every year on the 17th of November there is a peaceful demonstration (mostly marching really) that takes place on the streets of central Athens where people leave flowers at the end to pay tributes to those people and everyone else who fought for the freedom and democracy in Greece.
If you happen to be around this marching, feel free to join the peaceful protests and even leave a flower at the gates of the Polytechnic School of Athens, if you want.
Also, if you have young children, teach them about the importance of fighting for your rights and explain to them that freedom and democracy is never a given in this world.
You can read more about the uprising here and you can also watch this video about how today’s peacful marching looks like every year:
