Constantine II of Greece

King of the Hellenes

2 June 1940 Psychiko, Athens, Kingdom of Greece

-

Sports career

Former King of Greece This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (July 2021) Click for important translation instructions. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 4,145 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at ]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated page}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. King of the Hellenes Constantine IIConstantine II in 1987King of the HellenesReign6 March 1964 – 1 June 1973PredecessorPaulSuccessorMonarchy abolishedPrime Ministers See list Georgios PapandreouGeorgios Athanasiadis-NovasIlias TsirimokosStefanos StefanopoulosIoannis ParaskevopoulosPanagiotis KanellopoulosKonstantinos Kollias Born (1940-06-02 ) 2 June 1940 (age 81) Psychiko, Athens, Kingdom of GreeceSpouseAnne-Marie of Denmark ​ ​(m. 1964 )​Issue Princess Alexia Pavlos, Crown Prince of Greece Prince Nikolaos Princess Theodora Prince Philippos HouseGlücksburgFatherPaul of GreeceMotherFrederica of HanoverReligionGreek OrthodoxSports careerPersonal informationHeight189 cm (6 ft 2 in)Weight80 kg (176 lb) Medal record Representing   Greece Olympic Games 1960 Rome Dragon class Constantine II (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Βʹ , Konstantínos II, pronounced  ; born 2 June 1940) reigned as the last King of Greece, from 6 March 1964 until the abolition of the monarchy on 1 June 1973. Constantine is the only son of King Paul and Queen Frederica of Greece. As his family was forced into exile during the Second World War, he spent the first years of his childhood in Egypt and South Africa. He returned to Greece with his family in 1946 during the Greek Civil War. King George II died in 1947, and Constantine's father became the new king, making Constantine the crown prince. He acceded as king in 1964 following the death of his father, King Paul. Later that year he married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark with whom he eventually had five children. Although the accession of the young monarch was initially regarded auspiciously, his reign saw political instability that culminated in the Colonels' Coup of 21 April 1967. The coup left Constantine, as the head of state, little room to manoeuvre since he had no loyal military forces on which to rely. As a result, he reluctantly agreed to inaugurate the junta on the condition that it be made up largely of civilian ministers. On 13 December 1967, Constantine was forced to flee the country, following an unsuccessful countercoup against the junta. He remained (formally) the head of state in exile until the junta abolished the monarchy on 1 June 1973. The 1973 Greek republic referendum on 29 July, ratified the abolition. There were questions concerning the validity of this referendum and whether people were pressured to vote for a republic. Therefore a fresh referendum was held after the restoration of democracy in 1974. This second referendum was held after the fall of the junta as the 1974 Greek republic referendum on 8 December 1974 and confirmed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic. Constantine, who was not allowed to return to Greece to campaign, accepted the results of the plebiscite. Constantine is also a former competitive sailor and Olympian, winning a gold medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics in the Dragon class, and later serving on the International Olympic Committee. Along with his fellow crew members of the Nireus Sailing Vessel, he was named one of the 1960 Greek Athletes of the Year.