Ionian Islands in Venetian hands since 1238. The islands thus became the only part of the Greek-speaking world to escape Ottoman rule, which gave them both a unity and an importance in Greek history they would otherwise not have had. Corfu was the only Greek island never conquered by the Turks. Under Venetian rule, many of the upper classes spoke Italian (or Venetian in some cases) and converted to Roman Catholicism, but the majority remained Greek ethnically, linguistically, and religiously. In the 18th century, a Greek national independence movement began to emerge, and the free status of the Ionian islands made them
1953 Ionian earthquake were also several large earthquakes on January 26 and February 3, 2014, which were measured 6.1 and 6.0 on the Richter scale. The epicenters of both were in Kefalonia at very shallow depths and caused damage to the island. On October 25, 2018 there was a 6.8 magnitude earthquake off the coast that damaged parts of the Zante port dock. Following that quake, there were more than 50 additional quakes over 4 magnitiude in the Ionian Sea between the 25th and the end of October. 1953 Ionian earthquake The 1953 Ionian earthquake (also known as the Great Kefalonia earthquake) struck