In the late sixth century, Ayios Ioannis Eleimonas ( Saint John the Charitable ), protector of the Knights of St. John, was born in Amathus.

* Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first leader of free modern Greece ( 1776 – 1831 ), had a large building erected ; intended as a barracks, it was subsequently used as a museum, a library and a school.

* Agios Ioannis beach ( also Paralia Avdiron ), near the village Lefkippos

Successful recreations have been performed by Anthemius of Tralles ( 6th century AD ), Proclus ( 6th century ) ( who by this means purportedly destroyed the fleet of Vitellus besieging Constantinople ), Ibn Sahl in his On Burning Mirrors and Lenses ( 10th century ), Alhazen in his Book of Optics ( 1021 ), Roger Bacon ( 13th century ), Giambattista della Porta and his friends ( 16th century ), Athanasius Kircher and Gaspar Schott ( 17th century ), the Comte du Buffon in 1740 in Paris, Ioannis Sakas in the 1970s in Greece, and others.

* Ioannis Papadiamantopoulos ( 1766 – 1826 ), revolutionary leader during the Greek War of Independence.

* Ioannis Metaxas ( 1871 – 1941 ), general and dictator of Greece

* August Meineke, ( 1860 ), Ioannis Stobaei Eclogarum Physicarum et Ethicarum, Volume 1

* August Meineke, ( 1864 ), Ioannis Stobaei Eclogarum Physicarum et Ethicarum, Volume 2

* August Meineke, ( 1860 ), Ioannis Stobaei Florilegium, Volume: 1-2

* August Meineke, ( 1860 ), Ioannis Stobaei Florilegium, Volume: 3-4

* Curtius Wachsmuth, Otto Hense, ( 1884 ), Ioannis Stobaei Anthologium, Volume 1-2

* Curtius Wachsmuth, Otto Hense, ( 1894 ), Ioannis Stobaei Anthologium, Volume 3

* Curtius Wachsmuth, Otto Hense, ( 1909 ), Ioannis Stobaei Anthologium, Volume 4

* Curtius Wachsmuth, Otto Hense, ( 1912 ), Ioannis Stobaei Anthologium, Volume 5

In the same year, Alexander also forced the resignation of his ethnic Venetian / Greek foreign minister, Count Giovanni Capo d ' Istria ( Ioannis Kapodistrias, later president of the First Hellenic Republic ), for his passionate advocacy of the Greek cause.

Jean Moréas (; born Ioannis A. Papadiamantopoulos, Ιωάννης Α. Παπαδιαμαντόπουλος ; April 15, 1856 – April 30, 1910 ), was a Greek poet, essayist, and art critic, who wrote mostly in the French language but also in Greek during his youth.

His ancestors included two well-known men of the Greek War of Independence, namely his paternal grandfather and namesake Ioannis Papadiamantopoulos ( 1766 – 1826 ), born in Corinth but of ultimately Epirote ancestry, ( he was executed after the fall of Missolonghi ) and his maternal granduncle Iakovos Tombazis ( c. 1782 – 1829 ), a renowned Arvanite from Hydra, who became one of the first admirals of the Greek navy.

* 1776 – Ioannis Kapodistrias, Greek diplomat of the Russian Empire and first head of state of independent Greece ( d. 1831 )

She was survived by her husband, and her one daughter from her first marriage to Ioannis Paxinos, whose surname she had been using after their divorce.

In 1956 Maria Desylla Kapodistria, relative of first Governor of Greece Ioannis Kapodistrias, was elected mayor of Corfu and became the first female mayor in Greece.

Donated by Maria Desylla Kapodistria, grand niece of Ioannis Kapodistrias, former mayor of Corfu and first female mayor of Greece.

* Ioannis Pallikaris ( Greece ) Performed the first laser-assisted intrastromal keratomileusis or LASIK surgery.

During the period of the 4th of August Regime ( 1936 – 1941 ), the labrys was used as the main symbol of the regime-sponsored National Organisation of Youth ( EON ), as its leader, Ioannis Metaxas believed the symbol to be the first symbol of all Hellenic civilizations.

The Executive continued to govern Greece until 1828, when the first true national government was formed, under the direction of Ioannis Kapodistrias, who as " Governor of Greece " was head of the state and the government.

The term appeared for the first time during the debates of Prime Minister Ioannis Kolettis with King Otto that preceded the promulgation of the 1844 constitution.

In qualifying races for the 1896 Summer Olympics, Greek runners Kharilaos Vasilakos ( 3: 18: 00 ) and Ioannis Lavrentis ( 3: 11: 27 ) won the first two modern marathons.

In the first presidential elections for independent Cyprus, AKEL backed Ioannis Kliridis ( father of Glafkos Klerides ) against Makarios III.

In 1828, modern Greece ’ s first president Ioannis Kapodistrias whose maternal ancestors were Greek Cypriots, called for union of Cyprus with Greece, and numerous minor uprisings took place.

In the first presidential elections Clerides backed Makarios III, the other candidate being his father Ioannis Clerides.

* Ioannis Kapodistrias, Greek diplomat and Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire and later the first head of state of independent Greece

Demetrios Ypsilantis ( also spelt using Dimitrios, Demetrius and / or Ypsilanti ; ; ; 1793August 16, 1832 ) was a dragoman of the Ottoman Empire, served as an officer in the Imperial Russian Army in Moldavia and was appointed as modern Greece's first Field Marshal by Ioannis Kapodistrias, a hero of the Greek War of Independence.

* Ioannis Kapodistrias ( 1776 – 1831 ), Greek patriot and first governor of the Greek state ( 1828 – 1831 ) his family hailed originally from Koper / Capodistria

Count Ioannis Kapodistrias, first head of state of newly liberated Greece, set foot on the Greek mainland for the first time in Nafplio on 7 January 1828 and made it the official capital of Greece in 1829.

Such climatic and biological diversity, along with the rich flora and fauna that comes with it, made the need for the creation of national parks obvious as early as 1937, when the government of Ioannis Metaxas, first issued a law that established national parks in Greece.

Among its most widely known members were Costas Simitis, subsequently Prime Minister of Greece, Nikos Konstantopoulos, subsequently president of the Synaspismos party, professor of economics in Panteion UniversitySakis Karagiorgas, George Magkakis, professor of criminal law in the University of Athens, general Georgios Iordanidis, a well known military analyst and a national security advisor of George Papandreou sr during his administration, Vasilis Filias, professor of sociology in Panteion University, lawyer Dimosthenis Konaris, John Starakis, a journalist, Christos Rokofyllos, subsequently minister of Foreign Affairs, Dimitrios Kotsakis, a trade union member, Athanasios Filias, a mechanical engineer, Georgios Kouvelakis, subsequent minister of Justice, brothers Antonios Michalakeas ( subsequently, a judge of the supreme court of Greece ) and Athanassios Michalakeas ( subsequently a president of the court of Appeal ), Georgios Kosmas ( later on also a member of the supreme court of Greece ), Spyros Plaskovitis ( later on also a juge of the supreme court of Greece and a member of the European Parliament elacted with PASOK ), Ioannis Papadopoulos, a well known plastic surgeon ( later on a minister of Health during the first government formed by PASOK in 1981 ) etc.

The political experience of administering the Republic was hugely important for the young Ioannis Kapodistrias, who thereby attracted Russian patronage, and would later became the first governor of independent Greece.

The first Cretans to be commissioned as lieutenants on 14 January 1907, in order of seniority, were: Evangelos Sarris, Dimitrios Kokkalas, Andreas Androylakis, Alexandros Hatzioannou, Nikiforos Nikiforakis, Zaharias Mprillakis, Ilias Mourginakis, Minos Mylogjannakis, Emannouel Vogiatzakis, Georgios Vouros, and Ioannis Souris.

* Sancti patris nostri Ioannis Chrisostomi opera omnia ( Paris, 1718 — 1738 ; new edition 1735 — 1740 )

* 1871 – Ioannis Metaxas, Greek general and dictator ( d. 1941 )

* 1933 – Ioannis Varvitsiotis, Greek politician

* 2004 – Ioannis Kyrastas, Greek footballer and manager ( b. 1952 )

* 1941 – Ioannis Metaxas, Greek general and dictator ( b. 1871 )

* 1825 – Ioannis Varvakis, Greek national hero and benefactor ( b. 1745 )

* 1979 – Ioannis Kanotidis, Greek footballer

* 1962 – Ioannis Topalidis, Greek footballer

* 1952 – Ioannis Kyrastas, Greek footballer and manager ( d. 2004 )

* 1949 – Ioannis Glavakis, Greek politician

* 1939 – Ioannis Banias, Greek politician ( d. 2012 )

According to the diary of the German attache in Sofia at the time, Colonel von Schoenebeck, the two German doctors who attended the king – Sajitz and Hans Eppinger – both believed that the king had died from the same poison that Dr. Eppinger had allegedly found two years earlier in the postmortem examination of the Greek prime minister Ioannis Metaxas, a slow poison which takes weeks to do its work, and which causes the appearance of blotches on the skin of its victim before death.

The most prominent university professors of the time were handpicked to tutor the young Crown Prince: Ioannis Pantazidis taught him Greek literature ; Vasileios Lakonas mathematics and physics ; and Constantine Paparrigopoulos history, infusing the young prince with the principles of the Megali Idea.

The Greek statesman Ioannis Kapodistrias asked a French engineer to assess the feasibility of the project but had to abandon it when it was costed at some 40 million gold francs – far too expensive for the newly independent country.

Outstanding Greek public figures in the 20th century include Cretan-born Eleutherios Venizelos, prominent statesman of the interwar period ; Ioannis Metaxas, dictator from 1936 until his death ; Constantine Karamanlis, prime minister ( 1955 – 63, 1974 – 80 ) and president ( 1980 – 85 ) of Greece ; George Papandreou, head of the Center Union Party and prime minister ( 1963 – 65 ); and his son Andreas Papandreou, the PASOK leader who became prime minister in 1981.

At some times, particularly under the nationalist 4th of August Regime under Ioannis Metaxas of 1936 – 1941, Greek state institutions followed a policy of actively discouraging and repressing the use of Arvanitika.

King Constantine I assumed command of the Greek forces, with Lt. General Viktor Dousmanis as his chief of staff but as in the First Balkan War the organizational and strategic mind behind the scene was Major ( later Lt. General ) Ioannis Metaxas.