The news about Greece's financial situation is still making headlines as the country has now become the first developed country to default on a loan from the International Monitory Fund or IMF. This now seemed to have become official after the country's capital, Athens, missed a payment of $1.7 billion to the organization. Harvard professors Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff have long been documenting cases of sovereign defaults, and according to their research, Greece has had at least five defaults on its external sovereign debt obligations since its independence in 1829. The last default was in the early 1930s during the Great Drepression. They seem to have spent more than 50% of its history in default since 1829.
On the other hand, Greece is not the only nation to default on a sovereign obligation. In 2004, excessive borrowing and high interest rates had caused Nigeria to default and thus resulting to an international debt relief. Two years earlier, Indonesia also went through the same financial situation and in 2001 Argentina's large debt and a collapsing economy also resulted in the nation's default. In 1989, Russia's productivity plummeted as the oil prices took a deep plunge along with the ruble causing the big oil-producing country to default on its obligation as well. Those are just some of the countries who have been through the same financial turmoil.
However unlike other countries whose defaults are a result of a political or economic crises, what is unusual about Greece is that its default has involved private creditors. Greece has been going in and out of sovereign debt crisis throughout history and it does not look good to investors. Furthermore, it increases the unpredictability of the global stock market. Therefore, any wise investor would have to think more than twice before putting his money in the financially burdened nation.