The former King of Greece Constantine II dies at the age of 82 in the hospital of Athens, where he had been hospitalized last week.
Constantine, who ascended the throne in 1964, is the last king of the Hellenes after the monarchy was abolished by popular referendum in 1974 where the republican option had 70% of the votes. Although he never relinquished dynastic rights to him, they vested in his son Paul.
Constantine was deposed in 1973 by the military junta that ruled Greece, a junta that first won the monarch’s support but then unsuccessfully tried to remove it with a military counter-coup.
Driven into exile, he lived first in Italy and then in the United Kingdom.
But in the last years of his life, he was able to return to his homeland.
Married to Princess Ana María of Denmark, he was the father of five children and brother of Queen Sofía of Spain.
