Assassination of King George I

On 18 March 1913, King George I of Greece was assassinated in Thessaloniki, which the Greek army had captured just a few months earlier. The king had moved to the city to strengthen Greece's claim to it. He was taking his usual afternoon walk near the White Tower, accompanied by only one aide, when he was shot in the back at close range by a man named Alexandros Schinas. The king died almost immediately. Schinas was arrested, and he was described as mentally unstable, though his motives have never been fully explained. He died weeks later after falling from a police station window. George's death came just days before he had planned to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his reign, and it shocked the country, as he had been a popular and respected king. During his fifty-year reign, Greece had grown significantly, gaining the Ionian Islands, Thessaly, and territories in the Balkan Wars, and it had become a more stable constitutional monarchy. His son, Crown Prince Constantine, the victorious commander of the Balkan Wars, became King Constantine I.