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"Craggy Hios", as Homer aptly described his putative birthplace, has a turbulent history and a strong identity. It has always been relatively prosperous: in medieval times through the export of mastic resin - a trade controlled by Genoese overlords between 1346 and 1566 - and later by the Ottomans , who dubbed the place Sakiz Adasi ("Resin Island"). Since union with Greece in 1912, several shipping dynasties have emerged here, continuing the pattern of wealth. Participation in the maritime way of life is widespread, with someone in almost every family spending time in the merchant navy. The more powerful ship-owning families and the military authorities did not encourage tourism until the late 1980s, but the worldwide shipping crisis and the saturation of other, more obviously "marketable" islands eroded their resistance. Increasing numbers of foreigners are discovering a Hios beyond its rather daunting port capital: fascinating villages, important Byzantine monuments and a respectable, if remote, complement of beaches. While unlikely ever to be dominated by tourism, the local scene has a distinctly modern flavour - courtesy of numerous returned Greek-Americans and Greek-Canadians - and English is widely spoken. Unfortunately, the island has suffered more than its fair share of catastrophes during the past two centuries. The Turks perpetrated their most infamous, if not their worst, anti-revolutionary atrocity here in March 1822, massacring 30,000 Hiots and enslaving or exiling even more. In 1881, much of Hios was destroyed by a violent earthquake , and throughout the 1980s the natural beauty of the island was markedly diminished by devastating forest fires, compounding the effect of generations of tree-felling by boat-builders. Nearly two-thirds of the majestic pines are now gone, with substantial patches of woods persisting only in the far northeast and the centre of Hios. In 1988 the first charters from northern Europe were instituted, signalling potentially momentous changes for the island. But there are still fewer than four thousand guest beds on Hios, the vast majority of them in the capital or the nearby beach resorts of Karfas and Ayia Ermioni. Further expansion, however, is hampered by the lack of direct flights from most countries (including Britain), and the refusal of property owners to part with land for the extension of the airport runway
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