Every year on the 28th of October in all schools in Greece we celebrate the national holiday of OXI (NO). It is a bit strange because though in all other countries they celebrate the date the war ended, we celebrate the date that it started in Greece!

Shortly after 3 in the morning of October 28, 1940, the Italian government sent an ultimatum to Greece, through the Italian Ambassador to Athens, Emmanoule Gracci, who handed it to the Greek prime minister Ioannis Metaxas, in his house in Kifissia. and required the free passage of the Italian army from the Greek-Albanian border in order to then acquire some strategic points of the Kingdom of Greece (ports, airports, etc.) for refueling needs and other facilities in the subsequent pre- in Africa.

After reading the text, Metaxas turned his gaze to the Italian Ambassador and replied to the French (official diplomatic language) the historical phrase: "Alors, c'est la guerre" ( that is, Well, it means war), thus manifesting the negative position on the Italian demands.

Gracci himself in his memoirs, published in 1945, describes the scene:

    "I have a mandate, Prime Minister, to give you a statement and I have given it the document. I watched the emotion in his hands and his eyes. With a steady voice and looking at me straight at my eyes, Metaxas said to me: "This means war." I replied that this could be avoided. He replied NO. I added that if General Papagos ... Metaxas interrupted me and said: NO! I walked with the deeper respect, before this elder, who preferred sacrifice instead of enslavement "

Metaxas at that time had expressed the Greek popular feeling, the refusal of submission, and this refusal passed to the then Greek press press with the word "NO". It is noted that the word "NO" was presented for the first time as a title in the main article of the newspaper "Hellenic Future" by N.P. Efstratiou on October 30, 1940.

At 5 pm and half in the morning, the Greek-Italian War began with the surprise invasion (the ultimatum stipulated that the attack would begin at 6 am) by the Italian troops in Epirus, so that Greece defended itself and entered the war.