Modern Volos is built on the area of the ancient cities of Demetrias, Pagasae and Iolcos. Demetrias was established by Demetrius Poliorcetes, King of Macedon. Iolkos, Iolcos or Iolcus, was the homeland of mythological hero Jason, who boarded the ship Argo accompanied by the Argonauts and sailed in quest of the Golden Fleece to Colchis. To the west of Volos lie the Neolithic settlements of Dimini, with a ruined acropolis, walls, and two beehive tombs dating to between 4000-1200 BC, Sesklo, with the remains of the oldest acropolis in Greece (6000 BC), and also the foundations of a palace and mansions [clarification needed], among its most characteristic examples of Neolithic civilisation. Mycenaean settlements have also been discovered in Volos unearthing, at the Kastron of Palaia Hill, tablets bearing Mycenaean Greek inscriptions, written in Linear B.
According to a Byzantine historian of the 14th century, Volos was known as "Golos" (Greek: "Γόλος"). The most widely accepted theory for the derivation of the city's name suggests that Volos is a corruption of the Mycenaean Iolkos, which had become distorted through the ages to become "Golkos", later "Golos", and subsequently "Volos". Others contend that the name originates with Folos, who according to myth was a wealthy landlord of the region. It was conquered by Stefan Dusan, was king of Serbia in 1348 and was managed for 25 years. Volos returned to Byzantine rule in 1373 but was conquered by Ottomans in 1393.
The city marked a Southern border of Vilayet-i Rumeli-i Şarki in the Ottoman Empire, known then as "Golos". Since the early stages of the Greek Revolution, the provisional government of Greece claimed Volos as part of Greek national territory, but the Treaty of Constantinople (1832), which established a Greek independent state, set its northern boundary between Arta and Volos.
Volos is a relatively new city, beginning its strongest growth in the mid-19th century. The locality of its castle was previously known as Golos by Ottomans and locals, while Ano Volos was known as Gkolos.
After its incorporation into the Greek Kingdom from the Ottoman Empire in 1881, the town had a population of only 4,900, but grew rapidly in the next four decades as merchants, businessmen, craftsmen and sailors gravitated toward it from the surrounding area. In the 1920s a large influx of refugees to the settlement took place, especially from Ionia, but also from Pontus, Cappadocia and Eastern Thrace. In 1882, Andreas Syngros established the Privileged Bank of Epirus and Thessaly, which the National Bank of Greece acquired in 1899 after its founder's death. Volos was occupied by Ottomans in 8 May 1897, during the Greco Turkish War.
The city had a vibrant Jewish community in the early 20th century: from ca. 500 in 1896, it rose to ca. 2,000 in 1930, before falling drastically to 882 members in 1940, because of emigration to the great cities of Thessaloniki and Athens or abroad. During the Axis occupation of Greece, the prompt actions of the local chief rabbi, Moshe Pessach, and the Greek authorities, saved about 700 of the local Jewish community from deportation to the Nazi death camps.
Source: wikipedia.org