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
Snake Island (Black Sea) Snake Island (Black Sea) Snake Island (Greek Φιδονήσι "Fidonísi"), also known as Serpent Island (, , ), is an island located in the Black Sea, near the Danube Delta. The island is populated. A rural settlement of "Bile" was established in February 2007. The islet was part of border dispute between Romania and Ukraine in 2004–2009, during which Romania contested the technical definition of the island and borders around it. The territorial limits of the continental shelf around Snake Island were delineated by the International Court of Justice in 2009. Snake Island is an igneous rock formation located 35 km