The Greek Crisis Explained: A Tragedy in Four Acts. (Act 1 of 4)

Greece has been in trouble for years. Unemployment, bailouts, protests and changes of government have been in the news often. But, do you know why? And how did they get into that mess? This animation will explain what happened. In this chapter, we'll learn what happened when Greece joined the euro zone and started to spend more than they should.

Sources and Further Readings

A very good background of Greece’s history and importance in the ideal of European unification from Eurozine
The initial budget of the Olympic games was exceeded by billions of euros. This report from Business Week details its effect on the crisis (Their calculations exclude some projects we included in our total cost for the games)
In the end, there isn’t a consensus around how much the games really cost. But everyone agrees that the budget was exceeded
To hide his increasing debt, Greece used some sophisticated swaps, helped by Goldman Sachs, who got a nice profit out of it. Bloomberg explained in detail how it worked.
Another narrative from Dier Spiegel
And a report about it from the BBC with some interesting interviews.
An analysis from 2011 of the threat of a default in Greece, from the London Review of Books