GREECE Two Lepta 2000

No one in Greece can choose to not vote. Voting is required by law for every citizen who is 18 or older.
About 7% of all the marble produced in the world comes from Greece.
Greece has more international airports than most countries because so many foreign tourists want to visit.
The world’s third leading producer of olives, the Greeks have cultivated olive trees since ancient times. Some olive trees planted in the thirteenth century are still producing olives.

Capturing the Cretan bull
The saying “taking the bull by its horns” comes from the Greek myth of Hercules saving Crete from a raging bull by seizing its horns.
According to Greek mythology, Athena and Poseidon agreed that whoever gave the city the best gift would become guardian over the city. Though Poseidon gave the gift of water, Athena’s gift of an olive tree was deemed by the other gods to be more valuable.
Greece has zero navigable rivers because of the mountainous terrain. Nearly 80% of Greece is mountainous.
Approximately 98% of the people in Greece are ethnic Greeks. Turks form the largest minority group. Other minorities are Albanians, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Armenians, and gypsies.
About 12 million people around the world speak Greek. They live mostly in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, the United States, among other countries.
Thousands of English words come from the Greek language, sometimes via the Roman adaptation into Latin and then to English. Common English words from Greek include “academy,” “apology,” “marathon,” “siren,” “alphabet,” and “typhoon.
In the 1950s, only about 30% of Greek adults could read and write. Now, the literacy rate is more than 95%.