The island is said to owe its name to Kephalos, the

first king of the area during the Paleolithic era.

According to the locals, this king founded the four

main cities of the island which were Sami, Pahli,

Krani and Pronnoi, and named them after his

sons. This explains why the island was called

Tetrapolis (Four Towns) during this period.

Those four cities were autonomous and independent and had their own regimes and coins. Kefalonia participated

in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars on the side of both Athens and Sparta. Kefalonia is also known for the

Cyclopean wall.

Philip of Macedonia tried to attack the island in 218 BC. He

was defeated thanks to the help of the Athenians.

The Romans took the island in 187 BC after months of fighting

against the resistance of the island's inhabitants. That time, the

ancient acropolis of Sami was destroyed. The Romans used the

island as a strategic spot that would have helped them conquer

the mainland. They therefore turned Kefalonia into an

important naval base. During this period, the island suffered

heavily and frequently from invaders and pirate raids. The

threat of the pirates continued growing during the Byzantine period (from the 4th century AD); the most

dangerous pirates were the North African ones, the Saracens. In the 11th century the island fell under Frankish

rule: it was the end of the Byzantine era. Kefalonia was then consecutively conquered by the Normans, the

Orsinis, the Andeans and the Toccans.

The first Turkish attack was made by the famous Ahmed Pasha, in 1480; Pasha and his

troupes ruled the island for a short period of time and devastated the island when they

left. Following the same faith as the rest of the Ionian Islands, Kefalonia came under

the domination of the Venetians and the Spanish.

The political and military centers of the island during this period were the Fortress of

Saint George and the Castle of Assos, which was destroyed by an earthquake in 1757.

The capital moved to Argostoli, and is still there today.

During the Venetian domination the atmosphere was quite conflictive because the

island’s society was divided into three classes. The noble class, the wealthiest and more

powerful, had all the privileges and used them against the other social classes. The

Venetian rule ended in 1797 with the arrival of the French who were warmly

welcomed by the island’s inhabitants as Napoleon promised them to liberate them (and

the rest of the Ionian Islands) from the oligarchic system created by the Venetians.

The French publicly burnt the Golden Book where the names and privileges

of the nobles were written. The French were later defeated by the allied

fleet of the Russians, the Turks and the English.

The Ionian State was founded in Constantinople in 1800 and was under the

supervision of the Sultan; the nobles of the island regained their privileges.

After a huge popular demand, democratic elections were organized in 1802 and a new Constitution was

established in 1803. The island fell again under French domination in 1807 but the new Constitution was

maintained.

After the Treaty of Paris, in 1809, the Ionian Islands came under the rule of the English and the "United States of

the Ionians Islands» was established. During the English period various important constructions of public interest

were effectuated including the Drapanos British Cemetery, the De Bosset bridge in Argostoli, the Lighthouse of

Saint Theodori and the impressive Municipal Theatre of Kefalonia.

Despite the fact that Kefalonia, like the other Ionian Islands, remained under the English rule and escaped the

Turkish yoke, its inhabitants financially helped the Greek Revolution for independence against the Ottomans

who were ruling over the rest of Greece. Kefalonia was finally united to the rest of independent Greece in 1864,

the same time as the rest of the Ionian Islands.

During World War II, in 1941, the island was occupied by the Italian

troops which were allied with the Germans. In 1943, Italy capitulated

but its troupes refused to leave from Kefalonia. As a punishment, the

German forces killed more than 5000 Italian soldiers, a historic fact

described in the famous book "Captain Corelli's Mandolin", written by

Louis de Bernieres.

In 1953 a major part of the island was destroyed by a huge earthquake.