History
This small nation on Europe's edge has seen a long line of conquerors and foreign princes over the last 3000 years. In the 15th century, intrepid explorers transformed Portugal into the seat of a global empire. The following centuries witnessed devastation and great changes before Portugal became a democracy in the 1980s.
Early Peoples
One of Europe’s earliest places of settlement, the Iberian Peninsula was first inhabited many millennia ago, when hominids wandered across the landscape some time before 200,000 BC. During the Palaeolithic period, early Portuguese ancestors left traces of their time on Earth in fascinating stone carvings in the open air near Vila Nova de Foz Côa in the Alto Douro. These date back some 30,000 years and were only discovered by accident, during a proposed dam-building project in 1992. Other signs of early human artistry lie hidden in the Alentejo, in the Gruta do Escoural, where cave drawings of animals and humans date back to around 15,000 BC.
Homo sapiens weren’t the only bipeds on the scene. Neanderthals coexisted alongside modern humans in a few rare places like Portugal for as long as 10,000 years. In fact, some of the last traces of their existence were found in Iberia.
Neanderthals were only the first of a long line of inhabitants to appear (and later disappear) from the Iberian stage. In the 1st millennium BC Celtic people started trickling into the peninsula, settling northern and western Portugal around 700 BC. Dozens of citânias (fortified villages) popped up, such as the formidable Citânia de Briteiros. Further south, Phoenician traders, followed by Greeks and Carthaginians, founded coastal stations and mined metals inland.
The Mystery of the Neanderthals
Scientists have never come to an agreement about the fate of the Neanderthals – stout and robust beings who used stone tools and fire, buried their dead and had brains larger than those of modern humans. The most common theory is that Homo sapiens drove Neanderthals to extinction (perhaps in some sort of genocidal warfare). A less-accepted theory is that Neanderthals and humans bred together and produced a hybrid species. This idea gained credence when Portuguese archaeologists found a strange skeleton – the first complete Palaeolithic skeleton ever unearthed in Iberia – just north of Lisbon in 1999. The team, led by João Zilhão, director of the Portuguese Institute of Archaeology, discovered the 25,000-year-old remains of a young boy with traits of both early humans (pronounced chin and teeth) and of Neanderthals (broad limbs). The boy had been interred in what was clearly a ritual burial. Some believe this kind of relationship (lovemaking rather than war making) happened over the span of thousands of years, and that some Neanderthal elements entered the modern human gene pool.
Roman Settlements
When the Romans swept into southern Portugal in 210 BC, they expected an easy victory. But they hadn’t reckoned on the Lusitani, a Celtic warrior tribe that settled between the Rio Tejo and Rio Douro and resisted ferociously for half a century. Unable to subjugate the Lusitani, the Romans offered peace instead and began negotiations with Viriato, the Lusitanian leader. Unfortunately for Viriato and his underlings, the peace offer was a ruse, and Roman agents, posing as intermediaries, poisoned him. Resistance collapsed following Viriato’s death in 139 BC.
For a vivid glimpse into Roman Portugal, you won’t see a better site than Conímbriga, near Coimbra, or the monumental remains of the so-called Temple of Diana, in Évora.
By the 5th century, when the Roman Empire had all but collapsed, Portugal’s inhabitants had been under Roman rule for 600 years. So what did the Romans ever do for them? Most usefully, they built roads and bridges. But they also brought wheat, barley, olives and vines; large farming estates called latifúndios (still found in the Alentejo); a legal system; and, above all, a Latin-derived language. In fact, no other invader proved so useful.
Moors & Christians
The gap left by the Romans was filled by barbarian invaders from beyond the Pyrenees: Vandals, Alans, Visigoths and Suevi, with Arian Christian Visigoths gaining the upper hand in 469.
Internal Visigothic disputes paved the way for Portugal’s next great wave of invaders, the Moors – North African Muslims invited in 711 to help a Visigoth faction. They quickly occupied large chunks of Portugal’s southern coast.
Southerners enjoyed peace and productivity under the Moors, who established a capital at Shelb (Silves). The new rulers were tolerant of Jews and Christians. Christian smallholding farmers, called Mozarabs, could keep their land and were encouraged to try new methods and crops, especially citrus and rice. Arabic words filtered into the Portuguese language, such as alface (lettuce), arroz (rice) and dozens of place names (including Fatima, Silves and Algarve), and locals became addicted to Moorish sweets.
Meanwhile, in the north, Christian forces were gaining strength and reached as far as Porto in 868. But it was in the 11th century that the Reconquista (the Christian reconquest) heated up. In 1064 Coimbra was taken and, in 1085, Alfonso VI thrashed the Moors in their Spanish heartland of Toledo; he is said to have secured Seville by winning a game of chess with its emir. But in the following year, Alfonso’s men were driven out by ruthless Moroccan Almoravids who answered the emir’s distress call.
Alfonso called for help and European crusaders came running – rallying against the ‘infidels’. With the help of Henri of Burgundy, among others, Alfonso made decisive moves towards victory. The struggle continued in successive generations, and by 1139 Afonso Henriques (grandson of Alfonso VI) won such a dramatic victory against the Moors at Ourique (Alentejo) that he named himself Dom – King of Portugal – a title confirmed in 1179 by the Pope (after extra tribute was paid, naturally). Afonso also retook Santarém and Lisbon from the Moors.
By the time he died in 1185, the Portuguese frontier was secure to the Rio Tejo, though it would take another century before the south was torn from the Moors.
Rio Lima or River Lethe
When Roman soldiers reached the Rio Lima in 137 BC, they were convinced they had reached the Lethe, the mythical river of forgetfulness that flowed through Hades and from which no one could return. Unable to persuade his troops to cross waters leading (they thought) to certain oblivion, the Roman general Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus forded the river alone. Once on the other side he called out to his men, shouting each of their names. Stunned that the general could remember them, they followed him and continued their campaign. Incidentally, Brutus, who led legions to conquer Iberia after Viriato’s death, was later named proconsul of Lusitania.
The Burgundian Era
During the Reconquista, people faced more than just war and turmoil: in the wake of Christian victories came new rulers and settlers.
The Church and its wealthy clergy were the greediest landowners, followed by aristocratic fat cats. Though theoretically free, most common people remained subjects of the landowning class, with few rights. The first hint of democratic rule came with the establishment of the cortes (parliament). This assembly of nobles and clergy first met in 1211 at Coimbra, the then capital. Six years later, the capital moved to Lisbon.
Afonso III (r 1248–79) deserves credit for standing up to the Church, but it was his son, the ‘Poet King’ Dinis (r 1279–1325), who really shook Portugal into shape. A far-sighted, cultured man, he took control of the judicial system, started progressive afforestation programs and encouraged internal trade. He suppressed the dangerously powerful military order of the Knights Templar, refounding them as the Order of Christ. He cultivated music, the arts and education, and he founded a university in Lisbon in 1290, which was later transferred to Coimbra.
Dom Dinis’ foresight was spot on when it came to defence: he built or rebuilt some 50 fortresses along the eastern frontier with Castile, and signed a pact of friendship with England in 1308, the basis for a future long-lasting alliance.
It was none too soon. Within 60 years of Dinis’ death, Portugal was at war with Castile. Fernando I helped provoke the clash by playing a game of alliances with both Castile and the English. He dangled promises of marriage to his daughter Beatriz in front of both nations, eventually marrying her off to Juan I of Castile, thus throwing Portugal’s future into Castilian hands.
On Fernando’s death in 1383, his wife, Leonor Teles, ruled as regent. But she too was entangled with the Spanish, having long had a Galician lover. The merchant classes preferred unsullied Portuguese candidate João, son (albeit illegitimate) of Fernando’s father. João assassinated Leonor’s lover, Leonor fled to Castile and the Castilians duly invaded.
The showdown came in 1385 when João faced a mighty force of Castilians at Aljubarrota. Even with Nuno Álvares Pereira (the Holy Constable) as his military right-hand man and English archers at the ready, the odds were stacked against him. João vowed to build a monastery if he won – and he did. Nuno Álvares, the brilliant commander-in-chief of the Portuguese troops, deserves much of the credit for the victory. He lured the Spanish cavalry into a trap and, with an uphill advantage, his troops decimated the invaders. Within a few hours the Spanish were retreating in disarray and the battle was won.
The victory clinched independence and João made good his vow by commissioning Batalha’s stunning Mosteiro de Santa Maria da Vitória (aka the Mosteiro da Batalha or Battle Abbey). It also sealed Portugal’s alliance with England, and João wed John of Gaunt’s daughter. Peace was finally concluded in 1411.
Age of Discoveries
João’s success had whetted his appetite and, spurred on by his sons, he soon turned his military energies abroad. Morocco was the obvious target, and in 1415 Ceuta fell easily to his forces. It was a turning point in Portuguese history, a first step into its golden age.
It was João’s third son, Henry, who focused the spirit of the age – a combination of crusading zeal, love of martial glory and lust for gold – into extraordinary explorations across the seas. These explorations were to transform the small kingdom into a great imperial power.
The biggest breakthrough came in 1497 during the reign of Manuel I, when Vasco da Gama reached southern India. With gold and slaves from Africa and spices from the East, Portugal was soon rolling in riches. Manuel I was so thrilled by the discoveries (and resultant cash injection) that he ordered a frenzied building spree in celebration. Top of his list was the extravagant Mosteiro dos Jerónimos in Belém, later to become his pantheon. Another brief boost to the Portuguese economy at this time came courtesy of an influx of around 150,000 Jews expelled from Spain in 1492.
Spain, however, had also jumped on the exploration bandwagon and was soon disputing Portuguese claims. Christopher Columbus’ 1492 ‘discovery’ of America for Spain led to a fresh outburst of jealous conflict. It was resolved by the Pope in the bizarre 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, by which the world was divided between the two great powers along a line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. Portugal won the lands east of the line, including Brazil, officially claimed in 1500.
The rivalry spurred the first circumnavigation of the world. In 1519 Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellan), his allegiance transferred to Spain after a tiff with Manuel I, set off in an effort to prove that the Spice Islands (today’s Moluccas) lay in Spanish ‘territory’. He reached the Philippines in 1521 but was killed in a skirmish there. One of his five ships, under the Basque navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, reached the Spice Islands and then sailed home via the Cape of Good Hope, proving the Earth was round.
As its explorers reached Timor, China and eventually Japan, Portugal cemented its power with garrison ports and trading posts. The monarchy, taking its ‘royal fifth’ of profits, became stinking rich – indeed the wealthiest monarchy in Europe, and the lavish Manueline architectural style symbolised the exuberance of the age.
It couldn’t last, of course. By the 1570s the huge cost of expeditions and maintaining an empire was taking its toll. The final straw came in 1578. Young, idealistic Sebastião was on the throne and, determined to bring Christianity to Morocco, he rallied a force of 18,000 and set sail from Lagos. He was disastrously defeated at the Battle of Alcácer-Quibir (also known as the Battle of Three Kings): Sebastião and 8000 others were killed, including much of the Portuguese nobility. Sebastião's aged successor, Cardinal Henrique, drained the royal coffers ransoming those captured.
On Henrique’s death in 1580, Sebastião’s uncle, Felipe II of Spain (Felipe I of Portugal), fought for and won the throne. This marked the end of centuries of independence, Portugal’s golden age and its glorious moment at the centre of the world stage.
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Spanish Rule and Portuguese Revival
Spanish rule began promisingly, with Felipe vowing to preserve Portugal’s autonomy and attend the long-ignored parliament. But commoners resented Spanish rule and held on to the dream that Sebastião was still alive (as he was killed abroad in battle, some citizens were in denial); pretenders continued to pop up until 1600. Though Felipe was honourable, his successors proved to be considerably less so, using Portugal to raise money and soldiers for Spain’s wars overseas, and appointing Spaniards to govern Portugal.
An uprising in Catalonia gave fuel to Portugal’s independence drive (particularly when the Spanish King Felipe III ordered Portuguese troops to quell the uprising), and finally in 1640 a group of conspirators launched a coup. Nationalists drove the female governor of Portugal and her Spanish garrison from Lisbon. It was then that the duke of Bragança reluctantly stepped forward and was crowned João IV.
With a hostile Spain breathing down its neck, Portugal searched for allies. Two swift treaties with England led to Charles II’s marriage to João’s daughter, Catherine of Bragança, and the ceding of Tangier and Bombay to England.
In return the English promised arms and soldiers: however, a preoccupied Spain made only half-hearted attempts to recapture Portugal, and recognised Portuguese independence in 1668.
João IV's successors pursued largely absolutist policies (particularly under João V, an admirer of French king Louis XIV). The crown hardly bothered with parliament, and another era of profligate expenditure followed, giving birth to projects such as the wildly extravagant monastery-palace in Mafra.
Cementing power for the crown was one of Portugal's most revered (and feared) statesmen – the Marquês de Pombal, chief minister to the epicurean Dom José I (the latter more interested in opera than political affairs). Described as an enlightened despot, Pombal dragged Portugal into the modern era, crushing opposition with brutal efficiency.
Pombal set up state monopolies, curbed the power of British merchants and boosted agriculture and industry. He abolished slavery and distinctions between traditional and New Christians (Jews who had converted), and overhauled education.
When Lisbon suffered a devastating earthquake in 1755, Pombal swiftly rebuilt the city. He was by then at the height of his power, and dispensed with his main enemies by implicating them in an attempt on the king’s life.
He might have continued had it not been for the accession of the devout Dona Maria I in 1777. The anticlerical Pombal was promptly sacked, tried and charged with various offences, though he was never imprisoned. While his religious legislation was repealed, his economic, agricultural and educational policies were largely maintained, helping the country back towards prosperity.
But turmoil was once again on the horizon, as Napoleon was sweeping through Europe.
A Devastating Earthquake
Lisbon in the 1700s was a thriving city, with gold flowing in from Brazil, a thriving merchant class and grand Manueline architecture. Then, on the morning of 1 November 1755, a devastating earthquake levelled much of the city, which fell like a pack of dominoes, never to regain its former status; palaces, libraries, art galleries, churches and hospitals were razed to the ground. Tens of thousands died, crushed beneath falling masonry, drowned in the tsunami that swept in from the Tejo or killed in the fires that followed.
Enter the formidable, unflappable, geometrically minded Marquês de Pombal. As Dom José I's chief minister, Pombal swiftly set about reconstructing the city, true to his word to ‘bury the dead and heal the living’. In the wake of the disaster, the autocratic statesman not only kept the country’s head above water as it was plunged into economic chaos but also managed to propel Lisbon into the modern era.
Together with military engineers and architects Eugenio dos Santos and Manuel da Maia, Pombal played a pivotal role in reconstructing the city in a simple, cheap, earthquake-proof way that created today’s formal grid, and the Pombaline style was born. The antithesis of rococo, Pombaline architecture was functional and restrained: azulejos (hand-painted tiles) and decorative elements were used sparingly, building materials were prefabricated, and wide streets and broad plazas were preferred.
Dom José I, for his part, escaped the earthquake unscathed. Instead of being in residence at the royal palace, he had ridden out of town to Belém with his extensive retinue. After seeing the devastation, the eccentric José I refused to live in a masonry building ever again, and he set up a wooden residence outside town, in the hills of Ajuda, north of Belém. What was known as the Real Barraca (Royal Tent) became the site of the Palácio Nacional de Ajuda after the king's death.
The Dawn of a Republic
A French Invasion Unleashes Royal Chaos
In 1793 Portugal found itself at war again when it joined Britain in sending naval forces against revolutionary France. Before long, Napoleon gave Portugal an ultimatum: close your ports to British shipping or be invaded.
There was no way Portugal could turn its back on Britain, upon which it depended for half of its trade and the protection of its sea routes. In 1807 Portugal’s royal family fled to Brazil (where it stayed for 14 years), and Napoleon’s forces marched into Lisbon, sweeping Portugal into the Peninsular War (France’s invasion of Spain and Portugal, which lasted until 1814).
To the rescue came Sir Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington), Viscount Beresford and their seasoned British troops, who eventually drove the French back across the Spanish border in 1811.
Free but weakened, Portugal was administered by Beresford while the royals dallied in Brazil. In 1810 Portugal lost a profitable intermediary role by giving Britain the right to trade directly with Brazil. The next humiliation was João’s 1815 proclamation of Brazil as a kingdom united with Portugal – he did this to bring more wealth and prestige to Brazil (which he was growing to love) and, in turn, to him and the rest of the royal family residing there. With soaring debts and dismal trade, Portugal was at one of the lowest points in its history, reduced to a de facto colony of Brazil and a protectorate of Britain.
Meanwhile, resentment simmered in the army. Rebel officers quietly convened parliament and drew up a new liberal constitution. Based on Enlightenment ideals, it abolished many rights of the nobility and clergy, and instituted a single-chamber parliament.
Faced with this fait accompli, João returned and accepted its terms – though his wife and his son Miguel were bitterly opposed to it. João’s elder son, Pedro, had other ideas: left behind to govern Brazil, he snubbed the constitutionalists by declaring Brazil independent in 1822 and himself its emperor. When João died in 1826, the stage was set for civil war.
Offered the crown, Pedro dashed out a new, less liberal charter and then abdicated in favour of his seven-year-old daughter, Maria, on the provisos that she marry uncle Miguel and that uncle Miguel accept the new constitution. Miguel took the oath but promptly abolished Pedro’s charter and proclaimed himself king. A livid Pedro rallied the equally furious liberals and forced Miguel to surrender at Évoramonte in 1834.
After Pedro’s death, his daughter Maria, now queen of Portugal at just 15, kept his flame alive with fanatical support of his 1826 charter. The radical supporters of the liberal 1822 constitution grew vociferous over the next two decades, bringing the country to the brink of civil war. The Duke of Saldanha, however, saved the day, negotiating a peace that toned down Pedro’s charter while still radically modernising Portugal’s infrastructure.
A Hopeful New Era
The latter half of the 19th century was a remarkable period for Portugal, and it became known as one of the most advanced societies in southern Europe. Casual visitors to Lisbon, such as Hans Christian Andersen, were surprised to find tree-lined boulevards with gas street lamps, efficient trams and well-dressed residents. Social advances were less anecdotal. The educational reformer João Arroio dramatically increased the number of schools, doubling the number of boys’ schools and quadrupling the number of girls’ schools. Women gained the right to own property; slavery was abolished throughout the Portuguese empire, as was the death penalty; and even the prison system received an overhaul – prisoners were taught useful trades while in jail so they could integrate into society upon their release.
Professional organisations, such as the Literary Guild, emerged and became a major force for the advancement of ideas in public discourse, inspiring debate in politics, religious life and the art world.
As elsewhere in Europe, this was also a time of great industrial growth, with a dramatic increase in textile production, much of it to be exported. Other significant undertakings included the building of bridges and a nationwide network of roads, as well as the completion of major architectural works such as the Palácio Nacional da Pena above Sintra.
Dark Days & A King's Death
However, by 1900, discontent among workers began to grow. With increased mechanisation, workers began losing their jobs (some factory owners began hiring children to operate the machines), and their demands for fair working conditions went unanswered. Those who went on strike were simply fired and replaced. At the same time, Portugal experienced a dramatic demographic shift: rural areas were increasingly depopulated in favour of cities, and emigration (especially to Brazil) snowballed.
Much was changing, and more and more people began to look towards socialism as a cure for the country’s inequalities. Nationalist republicanism swept through the lower-middle classes, spurring an attempted coup in 1908. It failed, but the following month King Carlos and Crown Prince Luís Filipe were brutally assassinated in Lisbon.
Carlos’ younger son, Manuel II, tried feebly to appease republicans, but it was too little, too late. On 5 October 1910, after an uprising by military officers, a republic was declared. Manuel, dubbed ‘the Unfortunate’, sailed into exile in Britain, where he died in 1932.
The Rise & Fall of Salazar
After a landslide victory in the 1911 elections, hopes were high among republicans for dramatic changes, but the tide was against them. The economy was in tatters, an issue only exacerbated by a financially disastrous decision to join the Allies in WWI. In the postwar years the chaos deepened: republican factions squabbled, unions led strikes and were repressed, and the military grew more powerful.
The new republic soon had a reputation as Europe’s most unstable regime. Between 1910 and 1926 there were an astonishing 45 changes of government, often resulting from military intervention. Another coup in 1926 brought forth new names and faces, most significantly António de Oliveira Salazar, a finance minister who would rise through the ranks to become prime minister in 1932 – a post he would hold for the next 36 years.
Salazar hastily enforced his ‘New State’ – a corporatist republic that was nationalistic, Catholic, authoritarian and essentially repressive. All political parties were banned except for the loyalist National Union, which ran the show, and the National Assembly. Strikes were forbidden and propaganda, censorship and brute force kept society in order. The sinister new Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (PIDE) secret police inspired terror and suppressed opposition using imprisonment and torture. Various attempted coups during Salazar’s rule came to nothing. For a chilling taste of life as a political prisoner under Salazar, you could visit the 16th-century Fortaleza at Peniche – used as a jail by the dictator.
The only good news was the dramatic economic turnaround. Through the 1950s and 1960s Portugal experienced an annual industrial growth rate of 7% to 9%.
Internationally, the wily Salazar played two hands, unofficially supporting Franco’s nationalists in the Spanish Civil War and allowing the British to use Azores airfields during WWII despite official neutrality (and illegal sales of tungsten to Germany). It was later discovered that Salazar had also authorised the transfer of Nazi-looted gold to Portugal – 44 tonnes, according to Allied records.
But it was something else that finally brought the Salazarist era to a close – decolonisation. Refusing to relinquish the colonies, he was faced with ever more costly and unpopular military expeditions. In 1961 Goa was occupied by India, and nationalists rose up in Angola. Guerrilla movements also appeared in Portuguese Guinea and Mozambique.
Salazar, however, didn’t have to face the consequences. In 1968 he had a stroke, and he died two years later.
His successor, Marcelo Caetano, failed to ease unrest. Military officers sympathetic to African freedom fighters grew reluctant to fight colonial wars – the officers had seen the horrible conditions in which the colony lived beneath the Portuguese authorities. Several hundred officers formed the Movimento das Forças Armadas (MFA), which on 25 April 1974 carried out a nearly bloodless coup, later nicknamed the Revolution of the Carnations (after victorious soldiers stuck carnations in their rifle barrels). Carnations are still a national symbol of freedom.
From Revolution to Democracy
Despite the coup's popularity, the following year saw unprecedented chaos. It began where the revolution had begun: in the African colonies. Independence was granted immediately to Guinea-Bissau, followed by the speedy decolonisation of the Cape Verde islands, São Tomé e Príncipe, Mozambique and Angola.
The transition wasn’t smooth: civil war racked Angola, and East Timor, freshly liberated in 1975, was promptly invaded by Indonesia. Within Portugal, too, times were turbulent, with almost a million refugees from African colonies flooding into the country.
The nation was an economic mess, with widespread strikes and a tangle of political ideas and parties. The communists and a radical wing of the MFA launched a revolutionary movement, nationalising firms and services. Peasant farmers seized land to establish communal farms that failed because of infighting and poor management. While revolutionaries held sway in the south, the conservative north was led by Mário Soares and his Partido Socialista (PS; Socialist Party).
In the early post-Salazar days, radical provisional governments established by the military failed one after the other, as did an attempted coup led by General António de Spínola in 1975. A period of relative calm finally arrived in 1976, when Portugal adopted a new constitution and held its first elections for a new parliament. General António Ramalho Eanes was elected president the same year and helped steer the country toward democracy. He chose as his prime minister Soares, who took the reins with enormous challenges facing Portugal, including soaring inflation, high unemployment and downward-spiraling wages.
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The Rocky Road to Stability
Portugal was soon committed to a blend of socialism and democracy, with a powerful president, an elected assembly and a Council of the Revolution to control the armed forces.
Mário Soares’ minority government soon faltered, prompting a series of attempts at government by coalitions and non-party candidates, including Portugal’s first female prime minister, Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo. In the 1980 parliamentary elections a new political force took the reins: the conservative Aliança Democrática (AD; Democratic Alliance), led by Francisco de Sá Carneiro.
After Carneiro’s almost immediate (and suspicious) death in a plane crash, Francisco Pinto Balsemão stepped into his shoes. He implemented plans to join the European Community (EC).
It was partly to keep the EC and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) happy that a new coalition government under Soares and Balsemão implemented a strict program of economic modernisation. Not surprisingly, the belt-tightening wasn’t popular. The loudest critics were Soares’ right-wing partners in the Partido Social Democrata (PSD; Social Democrat Party), led by the dynamic Aníbal Cavaco Silva. Communist trade unions organised strikes, and the appearance of urban terrorism by the radical left-wing Forças Populares 25 de Abril (FP-25) deepened unrest.
In 1986, after nine years of negotiations, Portugal joined the EC. Flush with new funds, it raced ahead of its neighbours with unprecedented economic growth. The new cash flow also gave prime minister Cavaco Silva the power to push ahead with radical economic plans. These included labour-law reforms that left many workers disenchanted. The 1980s were crippled by strikes – including one involving 1.5 million workers – though they were to no avail: the controversial legislation was eventually passed.
The economic growth, however, wouldn’t last. In 1992 EC trade barriers fell and Portugal suddenly faced new competition. Fortunes dwindled as a recession set in, and disillusionment grew as Europe’s single market revealed the backwardness of Portugal’s agricultural sector.
Strikes, crippling corruption charges and student demonstrations over rising fees only undermined the PSD further, leading to Cavaco Silva’s resignation in 1995. The general elections that year brought new faces to power, with the socialist António Guterres running the show. Despite hopes for a different and less conservative administration, it was business as usual, with Guterres maintaining the budgetary rigour that qualified Portugal for the European Economic & Monetary Union (EMU) in 1998. Indeed, for a while Portugal was a star EMU performer, with steady economic growth that helped Guterres win a second term. But corruption scandals, rising inflation and a faltering economy soon spelt disaster. Portugal had slipped into economic stagnation by the dawn of the 21st century. The next 10 years were ones of hardship for the Portuguese economy, which saw little or negative GDP growth, and rising unemployment from 2001 to 2010. As elsewhere in Europe, Portugal took a huge hit during the global financial crisis. Ultimatums from the EU governing body to rein in its debt (to avoid a Greece-style meltdown) brought unpopular austerity measures – pension reform, increased taxes, public-sector hiring freezes – that led to protests and strikes.
Hard Times
Portugal's economy wasn't particularly strong in the years before the economic crisis, making the economic fire all the more destructive. Lumped in with other economically failing euro-zone nations, the group of them collectively known as PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain), Portugal – in dire financial straits – accepted an EU bailout worth €78 billion in 2011. The younger generation has borne the heaviest burden following the crisis, with unemployment above 40% for workers under the age of 25. In addition, there are the underemployed and those scraping by on meagre wages.
The EU bailout came with the stipulation that Portugal improve its budget deficit by reducing spending and increasing tax revenues. Austerity measures followed and the public took to the streets to protest against higher taxes and slashed pensions and benefits, in the context of record-high unemployment. Mass demonstrations and general strikes have grown, with the largest attracting an estimated 1.5 million people nationwide in 2013 – an astounding figure given Portugal's small size. Those in industries most affected by government policy – including education, healthcare and transportation – have joined ranks with the unemployed and pensioners to amass in the largest gatherings since the Revolution of the Carnations in 1974.
Despite the bailout package, Portugal remained in its most severe recession since the 1970s. Every day, Portuguese were confronted with depressing headlines announcing freezes on public spending, cuts in healthcare, removal of free school lunches, curtailing of police patrols, and rising suicides, among other issues. Pensioners living on 200-odd euros a month struggled to feed themselves without family financial support, and poverty and hunger affected untold millions; according to TNS Global roughly three out of four people in Portugal struggled to make their money last through the month.
What began as a financial crisis soon turned into a political crisis, as successive government ministers failed to ameliorate the growing problems. With anger mounting on the streets, the public clamoured for the resignation of prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho. Indeed, his time in power would come to an abrupt end in 2015, with a new left-wing government taking control.
Timeline
5000 BC
Little-understood Neolithic peoples build protected hilltop settlements in the lower Tejo valley.
700 BC
Celtic peoples, migrating across the Pyrenees with their families and flocks, sweep through the Iberian Peninsula.
197 BC
After defeating Carthage in the Second Punic War, the Romans invade Iberia, expanding their empire west.
AD 100
Romans collect taxes to build roads, bridges and other public works. They cultivate vineyards, teach the natives to preserve fish.
800
The Umayyad dynasty rules the Iberian Peninsula. The region flourishes under the tolerant caliphate.
1147
The Reconquista is under way as Christians attain decisive victories over the Moors.
1297
The boundaries of the Portuguese kingdom are formalised with neighbouring Castile. The kingdom of Portugal has arrived.
1348
The Plague reaches Portugal (most likely carried on ships that dock in Porto and Lisbon). The disease devastates, killing one in three.
1411
Newly crowned Dom João builds an elaborate monastery to commemorate his victory at Aljubarrota.
1415
Dom João’s third son, Prince Henry the Navigator, joins his father in the conquest of Ceuta in North Africa.
1418
Shipbuilding advances lead to the development of the caravel, a fast, agile ship that changes the face of sailing.
1443
Explorers bring the first African slaves to Portugal, marking the beginning of a long, dark era of slavery in Europe.
1494
The race for colonial expansion is on: Spain and Portugal carve up the world, with the Treaty of Tordesillas.
1497
Following Bartolomeu Dias’ historic journey around the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, Vasco da Gama sails to India and becomes a legend.
1519
Fernão de Magalhães embarks on his journey to circumnavigate the globe. He is killed in the Philippines.
1572
Luís Vaz de Camões writes Os Lusíadas, an epic poem that celebrates da Gama’s historic voyage.
1578
King Sebastião raises an army and invades Morocco. The expedition ends at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir.
1622
Portugal’s empire is slipping out of Spain’s grasp. The English seize Hormoz.
1703
France and Britain are at war. Facing (disastrous!) wine shortages, the English sign a new treaty with Portugal.
1717
Brazilian gold extraction nears its peak, with over 600,000oz imported annually. Dom João V becomes Europe’s richest monarch.
1755
Lisbon suffers Europe’s biggest natural disaster. On All Saints' Day, three massive earthquakes destroy the city.
1807
Napoleon invades Portugal. The Portuguese royal family and several thousand in their retinue pack up and set sail for Brazil.
1815
Having fallen hard for Brazil, Dom João VI declares Rio the capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil and the Algarves.
1822
In Brazil, Prince Regent Pedro leads a coup d’état and declares Brazilian independence, with himself the new ‘emperor’.
1865
Portugal enjoys a period of peace and prosperity. Advancements are made in industry, agriculture, health and education.
1890
Portugal takes a renewed interest in its African colonies. Britain wants control of sub-Saharan Africa and threatens Portugal with war.
1900
The republican movement gains force. The humiliating Africa issue is one among many grievances against the crown.
1910
King Carlos’ younger son, 18-year-old Manuel, takes the throne but is soon ousted. Portugal is declared a republic.
1916
Despite initial neutrality, Portugal gets drawn into WWI. The war effort is devastating for the economy, creating a long recession.
1932
António de Oliveira Salazar seizes power. The Portuguese economy grows but at enormous human cost.
1935
The largely unpublished 47-year-old poet Fernando Pessoa dies, leaving a trunk containing a staggering collection of writing.
1943
Portugal, neutral during WWII, becomes a crossroads for the intelligence activities of Allied and Axis operatives.
1961
The last vestiges of Portugal’s empire begin to crumble as India seizes Goa.
1974
Army officers overthrow Salazar’s successor in the Revolution of the Carnations. Portugal veers to the left.
1986
Portugal joins the EC along with Spain.
1998
Lisbon hosts Expo 98, showcasing new developments, including Santiago Calatrava’s cutting-edge train station.
1998
José Saramago receives the Nobel Prize in Literature for his darkly humorous tales about ordinary characters facing fantastical obstacles.
1999
Legendary fadista (performer of traditional song) Amália Rodrigues dies aged 79. Three days of mourning are declared.
2004
Hosting the UEFA European Championship, Portugal makes it to the final only to suffer an agonising loss to Greece.
2007
Portugal takes over the rotating EU presidency. The Treaty of Lisbon is drafted.
2010
Portugal legalises same-sex marriage, becoming the sixth country in Europe (and the eighth in the world) to do so.
2013
Fed up with rising unemployment, soaring taxes and spending cuts, 1.5 million protestors take to the streets of Portugal.