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
Kalamos (island) Kalamos (island) Kálamos (Greek: Κάλαμος, known in antiquity as Καρνος – "Karnos"), is a mountainous island and a former community in the Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Lefkada, of which it is a municipal unit. It lies east of Lefkada, near the Greek mainland. It has an overwintering population of around 500 people, which is swelled substantially in the summer by tourists. The name "Kalamos" means reed in Greek and the presence of this plant along its coastline in the past may have given its name.Another version is that the