There are traces of settlements on the Ionian Islands dating back to the Palaeolithic period. Scientific opinion has concluded that the first inhabitants who appeared here came from the Peloponnese. Homer's epics provide valuable evidence regarding their first years of history. It appears that during the 8th century BC, for example, Greeks came to the Ionian from Euboia (Evia) and the Peloponnese. Lefkada flourished especially during the archaic period (700-478 BC),

while Kefalonia blossomed in the classical period (478-323 BC) when Corfu rose to being a strong naval power. After the end of the Peloponnesian War, the leadership of Alexander the Great and Hellenistic period, came the Roman conquest. During the 9th-11th centuries AD, in the middle of the Byzantine Empire, the Ionian Islands took on an active role in combating pirates and the development of commerce between East and West. From the 14th century AD onwards the Ionian Islands came under the control of the Venetians. The Venetian domination of the islands left its strong mark both in terms of a strongly class differentiated society and through its development of commerce, the arts and crafts.  By the end of the 18th century, with the breakdown of the Venetian democracy, the islands successively passed under French domination, then to the Russo-Turkish alliance, when the Ionian state was created, and finally to the British. On the 21st of May 1864 the Ionian Islands become incorporated within the modern Greek State.