Assassination of Kapodistrias

On 9 October 1831, Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of independent Greece, was assassinated as he arrived for the Sunday morning liturgy at the Church of Saint Spyridon in Nafplio, then the capital. He was shot and stabbed by Konstantinos and Georgios Mavromichalis, the brother and son of Petros Mavromichalis, the powerful leader of the Mani region. Kapodistrias had worked tirelessly to build a functioning state. He organized an army, reformed the administration, founded schools, promoted agriculture and introduced the potato to Greece. But his efforts to centralize power and his authoritarian methods angered many of the leaders who had fought in the revolution, including the shipowners of Hydra and the chieftains of the Mani. When Petros Mavromichalis rebelled, Kapodistrias had him imprisoned, leading to the assassination. Konstantinos was killed on the spot by the governor's guards and a crowd, and Georgios was later executed. Greece fell into a period of anarchy and civil conflict. Kapodistrias remains one of the most honored figures in modern Greek history, and his image appears on the Greek 20-cent euro coin.