At 6:00pm Eastern Standard Time, Greece failed to make a $1.7 billion dollar payment to the IMF, placing the country officially in default.
The default, which Greece had warned would happen, is the first by an advanced economy in the fund’s seven-decade history, as well as the largest single overdue payment.
The default has put the new Athens government on a par with a small group of mostly conflict-ravaged debtors that have stiffed the IMF—a short list that includes Afghanistan’s Taliban and coup-stricken Haiti. Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe was the last major default to the emergency lender, in 2001.
