There are two stories as to how the 18-year-old Prince Wilhelm of       
          Denmark became Georgios I, King of Greece. The first tells how he read     
          it in the newspaper wrapped around his sardine sandwiches; the other       
          tells how a politician, participating in the selection of the new king     
          for Greece, asked the schoolboy if he was prepared to accept, to which     
          the Prince said yes, anything to get out of the college.                   
             The Greek National Assembly having declared him of age, he landed       
          in Piraeus on 30 October 1863 and began ruling the very next day. He       
          did almost everything to endear himself to the Greeks. He spoke their      
          language fluently yet remained a staunch Lutheran to the end of his        
          days. Four years later he married the 16-year-old Grand Duchess Olga       
          of Russia, and she too was truly loved by the Greeks. They became the      
          parents of eight children born over a twenty-year period.                  
             They lived a simple family life, mostly at Tatoi, a small estate        
          bought in 1871. King George reigned for fifty years but, on 18 March       
          1913 while visiting the newly liberated city of Salonika, was shot by      
          an assassin. His widow survived him by thirteen often turbulent years. 
 

Source: Leo van de Pas