Cyprus is an island nation in the Mediterranean Sea located off the coasts of Turkey and Syria. The island was settled by the Mycenaeans in the 2nd millennium BC, and major powers such as the Assyrian Empire, Ancient Egypt, and Achaemenid Empire. In 333 BC, Alexander the Great seized Cyprus from the Persian Empire, and it became a part of Ptolemaic Egypt before becoming a part of the Roman Empire. From 649 to 949, Muslim armies from the Levant repeatedly raided the island, and many cities (such as Salamis) were destroyed and never rebuilt. In 965, Emperor Nikephoros II of Byzantium restored Byzantine Roman rule to the island, and it would remain in Byzantine hands until King Richard the Lionheart of England seized it from its tyrant, Doux Isaakios of Cyprus, and sold it to the Templar Order and then the Kingdom of Cyprus in 1192. From 1192 to 1489, Cyprus was ruled by the House of Lusignan, and in 1489 it was sold to the Republic of Venice. In 1570, the Ottoman Empire conquered Cyprus, but in 1878 the United Kingdom took control of Cyprus after the Congress of Berlin. The island was ruled by Britain until 16 August 1960, when it became a republic.
The Republic of Cyprus was weak, as it was always under the control of foreign dynasties. On 15 July 1974, the Greek military officer Dimitrios Ioannidis instigated a coup on Cyprus in hopes of uniting the island with mainland Greece, but on 20 July 1974 the Turkish Army invaded the island, claiming that it had the right to restore constitutional order in the 1960 agreement with the UK and Greece. Instead of restoring the republic's constitution, however, Turkey occupied Northern Cyprus, which was home to Muslim Cypriot Turks. Since then, Cyprus has been divided, with the recognized government of Cyprus having the city of Nicosia as its capital. In 2013, Cyprus had a population of 1,141,166 people, with 77% being Greeks, 18% Turks, and 5% foreigners (predominantly Greek nationals, then British, Romanians, Bulgarians, Filipinos, Russians, Sri Lankans, Vietnamese, Syrians, and Indians). 78% were Orthodox Christian, 20% Muslim, 1% other (Catholic, Protestant, etc.), and 1% atheist.
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