…the Athenian garrison on Cephallenia (attested by an inscription of 373; there may, however, have been special factors, and it is not known how long the garrison remained).

The remnants of the Norman army had fled to Dyrrhachium on the Adriatic coast, effectively ending the attempted Sicilian conquest of the Empire.

The Normans are expelled from imperial soil, except for the islands of Cephalonia, …

The Orsini family, a Sicilian branch of the family of the counts palatines of Rome, had not only ruled the Ionian Islands, but also conquered Epirus in early fourteenth century, thus acquiring the title of the despot as well.

Certain members of the family had embraced the Orthodox dogma and married Greek women.

After the death of John II Orsini in 1335, the islands had been occupied by the Angevins, who as rulers of Achaea had the islands under their suzerainty until then.

The Angevin occupation lasts until 1357, when the said Greek territory is ceded to the Italian family of the Tocchi, who will remain in power for over a century and secure unity in the governance of the islands of Cephalonia, Zakynthos and Leukas.

Sultan Bayezid II had given ten of the captured Venetian galleys to Kemal Reis, who stations his fleet between October and December 1499 at the island of Cefalonia.

The Turkish fleet and army had quickly overwhelmed most of the Venetian possessions in Greece after the Battle of Modon.

Modon and Coron, the "two eyes of the Republic", are lost.

Doge Agostino Barbarigo asks the Pope and the Catholic Monarchs for help.

The Spanish captain-general, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, offers the forces at his disposal to the aid of Venice.

Cephalonia, one of the Ionian Islands off the western coast of Greece, had been in the hands of the Italian counts palatine of the Tocco family until 1479, when it was captured by the Ottoman Empire.

With the exception of a brief period of Venetian control in 1482–83, the island has remained in Ottoman hands.

The newly appointed Venetian captain-general of the sea, Benedetto Pesaro, aided by the Spanish fleet, lands on Cephalonia and after a siege takes the island's capital, the Castle of St. George, on December 24, temporarily stopping the Ottoman offensive on eastern Venetian territories.

The Spanish commander and his fleet return to Sicily.

…lose Cephalonia, largest of the Ionian islands.

The maritime explorer Ioánnis Fokás/Juan de Fuca, the discoverer of the Pacific Northwest straits named for him, has never received the great rewards he claims as his due, despite the repeated promises of the late Velasco.

After two years, and on the viceroy's urging, Fuca had traveled to Spain to make his case to the court in person.

Disappointed again and disgusted with the Spanish, the aging Greek had determined to retire to his home in Kefallonia but is in 1596 persuaded by an Englishman, Michael Locke, to offer his services to Spain's archenemy, Queen Elizabeth.

Nothing comes of Locke and Fokás's proposals, but it is through Locke's account that the story of Juan de Fuca enters English letters.