Messinia is mentioned in the oldest work of European literature, the Iliad. The name undoubtedly goes back to at least the Bronze Age, but its origins are lost in the world of mythology. The region was one of the largest that was conquered and enslaved as helots by ancient Sparta.
In the Middle Ages, Messinia shared the fortunes of the rest of the Peloponnese. Striking reminders of these conflicts are afforded by the extant ruins of the medieval strongholds of Kalamata, Koroni, Methoni and Pylos. Messinia was a part of the Byzantine Empire until 1205, and of the Principality of Achaea thereafter, while the ports of Koroni and Methoni came under Venetian control. Apart from Koroni and Methoni, the rest of Messinia was captured by the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea in 1430.
Much of Messinia fell into the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1460, whereas a part of the area remained with the Venetian Republic until the Second Ottoman–Venetian War (1499–1503). In 1534 a group of families, known as the 'Coroni', settled in Piana degli Albanesi in Sicily. They were Arvanites and Greeks from Koroni.
During the 1680s, the whole of Messinia was regained by the Venetian Republic in the Morean War, and formed part of the "Kingdom of the Morea" until recovered by the Ottomans in 1715. The Mani Peninsula, a part of modern Messinia, remained autonomous from Turkish rule.
Messinia became part of independent Greece as a result of the Greek War of Independence (1821-1832). The famous naval Battle of Navarino took place near present Pylos in 1827, and was a decisive victory for Greece and its allies.
During World War II several battles of the Greek Resistance against the Nazi occupation forces and the collaborationist security battalions took place in Messinia, including the Battle of Meligalas, Battle of Kalamata, Battle of Chora - Agorelitsa.
The population in the area of Kalamata and Messini increased from 30,000 before World War II up to nearly 80,000 in the present day. Messinia suffered damage from the 2007 Greek forest fires.
