I
Greek Georgios orig. Prince William of Denmark
born Dec. 24, 1845, Copenhagen, Den.
died March 18, 1913, Salonika, Greece
King of Greece.
Son of Christian IX of Denmark, he served in the Danish navy and in 1862 was nominated to the Greek throne by Britain, France, and Russia after the Greek king, Otto, was deposed. Accepted by the Greek National Assembly, he ascended the throne as George I in 1863. He oversaw the incorporation of territory in Thessaly and Epirus into Greece as well as the annexation of Crete. In the unrest caused by the Balkan Wars , he was assassinated at Salonika; he was succeeded by his son, Constantine I. His long reign was the formative period for the development of Greece as a modern European state.
II
orig. George Louis German Georg Ludwig
born May 28, 1660, Osnabrück, Hanover
died June 11, 1727, Osnabrück
First king of England (1714–27) from the house of
He succeeded his father as the elector of Hanover (1698) and fought with distinction in the War of the Spanish Succession . As a great-grandson of James I of England and under the Act of Settlement , George ascended the English throne in 1714. He formed a Whig ministry and left internal politics to his ministers, including 1st Earl Stanhope , Viscount Townshend , and Robert Walpole . He was unpopular because of his German manner and German mistresses and their involvement in the {{link=South Sea Bubble">South Sea Bubble crisis, but he strengthened Britain's position by forming the Quadruple Alliance (1718). He was succeeded by his son, George II .