Short answers, pulled from the story.
Heptanese means "Seven Islands" in Greek, referring to the seven principal islands in the group: Kerkyra, Paxi, Lefkada, Ithaki, Kefalonia, Zakynthos, and Kythira. The group also includes many smaller islands in addition to those seven.
The Ionian Islands officially reunited with Greece on the 21st of May 1864. The British formally departed on the 2nd of May 1864, and the islands became three provinces of the Kingdom of Greece.
The Ottomans conquered most of Greece in the 15th century but their repeated attempts to take the Ionian Islands were largely unsuccessful. Venice, which controlled the islands from 1204 onward, managed to defend them, making the islands the only part of the Greek-speaking world to remain outside Ottoman rule.
The Septinsular Republic was established in 1800 under joint Russo-Ottoman protection after Admiral Ushakov's fleet expelled the French. It lasted until 1807 and represented the first time Greeks had held even limited self-government since the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
In 1943, after Germany replaced Italy as the occupying power in the Ionian Islands, the Germans deported the centuries-old Jewish community of Corfu to their deaths.
The 1953 Ionian Islands earthquake struck on the 12th of August 1953 with a surface wave magnitude of 7.2 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of X, rated Extreme. The southern islands of Kefalonia and Zakynthos were practically levelled and had to be reconstructed from the ground up under a strict new building code.