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Since 1943, cervical cancer has been detected using the Pap smear test, a gynaecological procedure named after its inventor, the Athens-educated Greek-American doctor, George Papanicolaou (1883–1962).

The triangular gable on the façade of a temple where relief sculptures are often carved.

Perikles (c.495–429 BC) got poorer citizens to attend the Assembly, beautified Athens and extended the empire.

Perseus was the son of Zeus and the maiden Danae. The tyrant Polydectes violently desired Danae, but Perseus promised him the snake-infested head of Medusa in exchange for his mother’s safety. Perseus slew Medusa with Athena’s help and, upon his return, turned Polydectes to stone; Athena then put Medusa’s head on her shield.

If Socrates was the forerunner of Western philosophy, Plato was the foundation. His works, from his early dialogues reprising Socrates’ teachings, to later masterworks such as the seminal Republic , comprised the backbone of every major intellectual movement to follow.

The god of the sea was Zeus’s brother – and sometimes his greatest rival.

At the close of WWII, with its political future uncertain, Greece fell into civil war. The US began pouring economic and military aid into the country, but on the proviso that the Communist Left would not gain power. In the 1950s and ’60s, Athens saw rapid industrialization, mass migration from rural areas and the growth of sprawling suburbs.

“The square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.” This theorem, discovered by the philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras (582–500 BC) was a major scientific breakthrough, which led to extraordinary advances in mathematics, geometry and astronomy.

A revolutionary method of Classical vase-painting: the outlines of figures are painted on with red glaze, creating flowing, active images.

Still the blueprint for the best way to run a government.