On December 3rd a demonstrationdemonstration n.示范， 实证 in Syntagma turned into a battle when the police fired upon the crowd. After the shooting while the wounded were being attended to more shots were fired. In the end there were 23 demonstrators dead and 140 wounded including many women. The British were ordered by Churchill to treat Athens as a captured city. Athens had survived World War 2 only to be bombed from the air and have its working class neighborhoods attacked by its own allies. The British who had supported the resistance against the Germans now were fighting against them in a class war， defending Syntagma and the wealthy neighborhood of Koloniki against the poor and working class neighborhoods that comprised the rest of Athens. This led to Civil war throughout the whole country， with Britain and later the USA providing guns and money to the establishment to destroy the left. That it was viewed by many as supporting the collaborators against some of the heroes of the resistance did not seem to matter and Greece， after suffering through the occupation， instead of experiencing the joys of liberationliberation n.解放，释放 was thrust into a war that pitted brother against brother and caused more death and despair than the Nazis had. The resistance and heroism of the Greeks against the Italians and the Germans had been an inspiration to all the subjugated people of Europe. But this did not matter when a new world order was being carved out. You could say that the events on December 3rd in Syntagma were the beginning of the Cold War. Though these events are known to few people outside of Greece， when you consider the effects that the policies of the cold war had on the entire world， it is a wonderwonder n.奇迹， 惊奇， 惊愕 vt.对……感到惊讶， 惊奇， 想知道 vi.惊讶， 怀疑 adj.非凡的， 奇妙的 that there is not some kind of international recognition of the importance of that day in Syntagma Square in the last half of the twentieth century. It was a defining moment in history.
At the top of Syntagma is the Parliament Building， formerly the King，s Palace， built between 1836 and 1840 by King Otto and financed by his father Ludwig I of Bavaria. The original idea was to put the king，s palace on the Acropolis but luckily this never happened. The classical style of architecture， known as neoclassical which originated in Greece and is the dominantdominant adj.有统治权的， 占优势的， 支配 adj.［生物］ 显性的 style of all the old public buildings， houses and mansions of Athens， was actually reimported into Greece in the late eighteen hundreds from Europe and then modifiedmodified 改良的， 改进的， 修正的 (improved) by Greek architects. From the top of Syntagma Square to the right if you are looking at the Parliament is the terminal for the Athens Coastal Tram where you can ride to the beaches. Across the street at the entrance to the National Gardens is where you can take the trolleytrolley n.电车， (电车)滚轮， 手推车， 手摇车， 台车 vt.用手推车运 vi.乘电车 buses to the National Archaeological Museum.(2，4，5，11 and 15). You can also walk it in half an hour by going down Panapistimiou and turning right a block before Omonia Square on 28th of October - Patission Street.
