1577 > Earthquake: According to an unknown writer who wrote additional paragraphs on Boustronios manuscript, during this year “an earthquake that had never occurred in any world”, it destroyed “several churches and houses and frightened the whole island” [Georgios Boustronios, 15th cent. – Andros Pavlides, 1982].
1577 > Hailstorm: According to an unknown writer who wrote additional paragraphs on Boustronios manuscript, at this year “a harsh winter threw hail that killed many animals; then the torrent ‘Vathias’ of Limassol came strong and destroyed the houses of…” [Georgios Boustronios, 15th cent. – Andros Pavlides, 1982].
1578 > Revolt: Venetian agents, according to Hill, instigated a number of disgruntled janissaries to join in a revolt with the Greek Orthodox Christians. Governor Arab Ahmed Pasa was killed by his own soldiers, whom he reportedly had brutalized and neglected to pay. Later janissaries killed the newly dispatched governor as well. Finally, although the janissaries mixed in with the Christians, raised flags of Spain, Venice, and the pope, and notified the governor of Crete, their appeals received no response and the revolt collapsed [Ronald Jennings, 1992].
1580 > Revolt: According to Paul Ricaut (1678), a rebellion took place this year [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1593 > Revolt: According to Paul Ricaut (1678), a rebellion took place this year [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1596 > Emigration: According to Erdoğru (2015), Ahmed Bay, the military commander of Paphos, and the chief judge of Paphos reported to the Sublime Porte that an Ottoman sergeant named Bali Cavus had tormented non-Muslims of the region. For this reason, Christians had abandoned their lands without any “royal permission” and fled to Europe. Also according to him, the town of Paphos appears to have become a town and region where Muslims and non-Muslims had tensed relationships after 1596 [Akif Erdoğru, 2015].
1607 or 1608 > Revolt: Four hundred Greeks in the west part, at Paphos, rebelled, thinking that time had altered their hard fortunes by a new change. It ended up in massacre according to William Lithgow who had been a few years later in Cyprus [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895]. According to Sakellarios (1890), it was Victoras Zempetos who led the revolt (in 1608) and killed many Ottomans before he escaped abroad, to meet the Duke of Savoy [Athanasios Sakellarios, 1890].
1607 > Attack: A small Tuscan fleet of eight galleys and nine galleons appeared at Magosa and failed in an attempt to seize it, withdrawing with heavy casualties [Ronald Jennings, 1992].
1607 > Attack: Lithgow mentioned an unsuccessful attack by Ferdinand, Duke of Florence with five galleys [Ronald Jennings, 1992].
1624 > Pestilence: Without giving further details, Paul Ricaut (1678) claims a deadly pestilence took place during that year [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1690 > Revolt: According to Archimandrite Kyprianos (1788), a local aga prevailed and managed to impose his authority on the island. The Porte didn’t act against him as long as he paid the taxes and recognised the Sultan’s sovereignty. When he stopped being submissive the Porte sent a military force to remove him, but failed. A second successful mission followed, which after a long pursuit, the aga was caught with other rebels in Kilani. They were taken to Nicosia and were executed by hanging [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1735 > Earthquake: Alexander Drummond (in Cyprus 1745) mentions the following: “the Cathedral church of Sancta Sophia [in Famagusta], which had been converted into a mosque, fell in and buried in its ruins above two hundred Turks who were at worship when the shock happened. By what remains of this church, St George, and some others…” [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1741 > Earthquake: “An earthquake, and so violent that the minaret of the Mosque, formerly the church of S. Sophia, fell and wrought no small damage”, according to Archimandrite Kyrpianos in 1788 [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1743 > Church Scandal: Alexander Drummond (in Cyprus 1745) mentions the following: “the [Greek Orthodox] archbishop for the time being with the countenance of the Musellim, who shared in the robbery, levied from the poor people no less than 40,000 piastres: but they complained so effectually to the Porte, corroborating their complaints with bribery, that he was stripped of his archepiscopal robes, dignity and emoluments” [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1746 > Infrastructure: According to Archimandrite Kyprianos (1788), Bekir Pasha came to Cyprus, and at his own cost brought in the water which now supplies the town of Larnaca [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1757 > Famine: According to Archimandrite Kyprianos (1788), “a great dearth in the island by reason of the drought and the locusts, so that the people were cooking wild colocasia, a noxious root, and eating them, with other wild herbs. A great number tied from the island to Syria and Asia Minor. This dearth lasted nearly into the year 1758” [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1764-1766 > Revolt due to new, high, unreasonable taxation (44.5 piastres for the Greek and half of it for the Turks). We are informed about this from Abba Giovanni Mariti and Archimandrite Kyprianos who experienced the events. Oppression led the people regardless of race at the governor’s Tzil Osman palace when a part of the floor collapsed killing and injuring many present taxpayers. The people who were waiting outside the palace considered it a premeditated act of the muhassil, and they forced their way into the palace, massacred the tyrant and 18 of his followers, and plundered the treasury. With the governor dead, the Mullah later restored the order. The new governor, Hafuz-Mahomed-Effendi, arrived and asked for the luted property of the palace and government to be returned, something that the Cypriots didn’t do, and he imposed a fine of 14 piastres per head for each non-Muslim who was listed as a contributor to the revolt, and 7 for each Muslim. Whispers were rife that Hafuz Efendi had in his greed made large additions to the sum needed to be paid. Again the people were furious and a group of revolters threatened the new governor’s existence. In the meantime, an additional governor arrived on the island, Soliman Effendi in 1765. A Muslim inhabitant, Halil Aga, lead the revolters who in 1766 accumulated 5000 and tried to conquest Nicosia with arms [5 times during a period of 14 months Nicosia was blockaded according to T. Stavrides’s research [Theocharis Stavrides, 2019]]. With the execution of the rebel and of 200 of his followers, the revolt ended the same year. According to Kyprianos, “Khalil and his crew were exterminated about the beginning of September, and by order of the Porte Ahmed Pasha and the others left the island, which was glad to be rid of the Caramanians, a set of savages, thieves and murderers” [Giovanni Mariti, 1791 – Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1804-1805 > Riot: Ali Bey comments in 1806: “There had been a great rising of the Turks against the [Greek] Dragoman [official translator]. They gained possession of the city of Nicosia and behaved atrociously to the Archbishop and other Greeks; they even killed those who refused to give them money. The Dragoman fled to Constantinople, where he not only proved the Greeks to be in the right but obtained an order for a Pasha with some Caramanian soldiers to march against the rebels, who had entrenched themselves in Nicosia. After several fights, these opened negotiations with the Pasha, who accepting the mediation of some of the European Consuls gave his word that he would punish no one. The rebels opened the city gates, and as soon as the Pasha was within, regardless of his promise he caused several of them to be beheaded” [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1806 > Church Corruption Claim: Ali Bey during this year claims an incident of corruption on behalf of the Church of Cyprus: “these princes of the Church receive the imposts assessed on the community so as to pay to the Turkish government its annual claim, and to share with it a kind of monopoly. The Government has never succeeded in learning how many Greeks there are on the island. They own a total of 32,000 souls: but well-informed persons raise this number to 100,000. Last year a commissioner was sent to make an exact enumeration of the Greek families, but he was ‘got at’, loaded with gold, and went away—his task unfulfilled. This handling of the taxes brings enormous gains to the spiritual heads of the people, who suffer in silence lest a worse evil befall on them” [Ali Bey implies that the Church, on behalf of the governor, received tax from “x” tax-payers and declared taking money from actually 1/3, keeping the rest of the taxes its own pocket] [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1813 > Plague: William Turner in 1815, while passing by Agia Varvara in Pafos, mentioned the following: “On the beginning of it we passed the small village of S. Barbara, whose inhabitants were every one of them swept off by the plague two years ago” [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
1821 > Massacre: [The governor, in anticipation of an insurrectionary movement in the island, following the revolution that sparked in Greece the same year against the Ottomans, considered the Greeks rebellious and murdered countless Christians to prevent a simulation of the event in Cyprus. An extensive massacre was accompanied by forced punitive Islamization and a wave of disorderly emigration in any destination available]. According to Lacroix in 1853, Kuchuk Mehmed [the governor] persists in inventing a plot, persuades the Grand Vezir of its reality [and according to Ioannis Philemon (1860) presents a list of 486 names of Christians of wealth, education and influence]: he, being perhaps a party to the stratagem, allows the Governor to make an example by the severe punishment of the leaders. According to the journal Notizie del Giorno in 1821, following the order of the governor, the Archbishop and the chief abbots of the monasteries were hanged and confiscated their goods, especially those of the famous monastery of Kykkos. Additionally, the three bishops, many monks [Pouqueville (1824) claims around 40 ecclesiastics], the Christian chiefs and leading citizens of the cities and towns were beheaded [Spyridon Trikoupis in 1860 talks for about 200 persons. Philemon claims their land and houses were seized and sold or passed into the possession of the local aghas. Also, Sakellarios writes that those who were on the list and executed, their wives and children were left homeless [Athanasios Sakellarios, 1890]]. Furthermore, “he subjected various Greeks who were employed in the prominent offices of the Serai and the Mecchemi (the residence of the Mufti) and then by brute force compelled them to become Turks, to which a lot were subjected also the sons of the persons executed, and others [wives and children]”. Emigration frenzy followed: “In short no one will remain any longer in the island; even the Franks assist people to escape, and many have fled, and others are preparing for flight so that the island will soon be a desert”. According to Pouqueville in 1824, “Forty boats from Psara [Greek island] entered the bay [of Larnaca]; the brigands ran pell-mell to the hills; and the Greeks snatched from certain death got on board the vessels, which at once set sail”. Also, “sixty-two villages and hamlets had entirely disappeared” and “Many churches had been turned into mosques, others into stables” [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895]. According to Sakellarios, those Christians of influence who were hidden by the ambassadors at the consulates, onboarded ships and emigrated to Venice, Trieste, Marseilles and other western cities. On the contrary, 30 of them accepted to be converted to Islam [Athanasios Sakellarios, 1890].
1832 > Revolt: According to Athanasios Sakellarios (1890) this was the last massacre that took place in Cyprus during the Ottoman rule: A Cypriot monk of the Agios Elias monastery of Karpasia, having taken part in the Greek Revolution of 1821, repatriated accompanied with a number of Albanians in Tricomo village and urged the folk to revolt against the Ottomans, mentioning that the English ambassador would send to them weapons and ammunition. Simultaneously, the Turkish imam dissatisfied with the 18 kuruş tax that the administration imposed on the Turks, in collaboration with the monk revolted in Paphos and marched with his supporters in Limassol. Having learned this news the Nicosia administration sent an army against both. The monk with the Albanians ran onto the mountains, where they got arrested and executed by shooting in Nicosia, and many of the revolted peasants were beheaded as a warning to the rest of them. The imam escaped the arrest and migrated [Athanasios Sakellarios, 1890].
1864 > Cholera: According to Athanasios Sakellarios, cholera struck Cyprus coming from Syria [Athanasios Sakellarios, 1890].
1870 > Drought: According to a Sakellarios source, in 1870 a great drought occurred that lasted for four years; the seeds did not grow and those who grew dried up. As a result, a poor harvest followed that caused a great hunger among the inhabitants, that they were forced to sell out their animals, as they had no food to feed them. Archbishop Sofronios went to the Porte with a commission of Christians and Muslims, and he was granted permission that the Cypriots could be given from the state warehouses 50,000 kg of wheat, 60,000 kg of barley and 5,000 kg vicia seeds for the growth of special plants whose seeds and straw were given to the animals for food, with the term that the peasants would pay back the recourses in seeds after three years [Athanasios Sakellarios, 1890].