In 545 BC, Cyrus the Great, of Persia & the Achaemenid Empire 🔍 , conquered Cyprus (allowing local rule in exchange for tribute.) Alexander the Great then 'liberated' the island in 333 BC, integrating it into the Hellenistic empire. Following his death, just 10 years later, Cyprus fell to Ptolemaic Egypt (who abolished the independent kingdoms) until the Romans annexed the island in 58 BC.

After the fall of the Western Empire in the 5c AD the island mostly fell under Arab 🔍 control until it's reconquest by the Byzantines in 965 AD. It was briefly captured by King Richard† of England in 1191, during the 3rd Crusade. He sold it to the Knights Templar, who immediately resold it to Guy de Lusignan, (the displaced King of Jerusalem) who's dynasty ruled it as a Frankish feudal kingdom until 1489, when they ceded to Venice. It then served as a strategic outpost against Muslim Turkish expansion till 1571 when the Ottomans conquered the island.

The British took control of Cyprus from the Ottomans in 1878, formally annexing it in 1914, during WWI; bestowing full Crown Colony status in 1925. But a rise of ethnic nationalism (~80%-20% Greek-Turkish) lead to revolts & guerrilla warfare and eventually independence, in 1960, as the 🔎 Republic of Cyprus, a bi-communal state.

Ethnic tensions only intensified, however, with violence like "Bloody Christmas," erupting in 1963 resulting in the deployment of a UN peace-keeping force and the division of the island in 1974 along what's known as the Green Line, between the Greek, Republic of Cyprus in the south 🔍 & Turkish Cypriots in the north, (officially declared as The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, unrecognized outside of Turkey, in 1983.)

† Of Robin Hood fame