Battle of Marathon of events, with the competitors running from Marathon to Athens. So popular was this event that it quickly caught on, becoming a fixture at the Olympic games, with major cities staging their own annual events. The distance eventually became fixed at 26 miles 385 yards, or 42.195 km, though for the first years it was variable, being around —the approximate distance from Marathon to Athens. Battle of Marathon The Battle of Marathon (Greek: , "Machē tou Marathōnos") took place in 490 BC, during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea,
Athens News Agency each by the journalist unions of Athens and Thessaloniki, the publishers' union and the ANA employees. ANA collaborates with the international news agencies Reuters, Agence France-Presse, DPA, ITAR-TASS and a number of national news agencies, as well as the EPA photograph agency. All the ANA services are on-line, with an estimated 350 news items in Greek and 60-70 items in English updated daily. It also publishes an English 'Electronic Daily News Bulletin' containing all the Greek news. The ANA further has four data banks in Greek—news, biographies of Greek and foreign personalities, election results and sports—and a news bank in