Italian colonists in the Dodecanese period, and destroyed all other Ottoman buildings that weren't of importance. Furthermore, in those years an "Institute for the study of the History and Culture of the Dodecanese region" was established, and major infrastructure work was done to modernize Rhodes. Buildings like the Aquarium were built, mainly in art deco style. Indeed, in all the Dodecanese islands remains a huge architectural legacy from the Italian colonists. Here are some examples: Italian colonists in the Dodecanese Italian colonists were settled in the Dodecanese Islands of the Aegean Sea in the 1930s by the Fascist Italian government of Benito Mussolini, Italy having
Dodecanese campaign when Italian forces recaptured the island of Kastellorizo from British commandos. After the Battle of Greece in April 1941 and the Allied defeat in the Battle of Crete in May 1941, Greece and its many islands were occupied by the Axis powers. With the defeat of Axis forces in the North African campaign in spring 1943, Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, who at least as far back as the Gallipoli campaign in World War I had a deep interest in the region, turned his sights on the islands. The British envisaged an operation to capture the Dodecanese and Crete,