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Lusitania In the early first millennium BC, several waves of Celts invaded Portugal from Central Europe and intermarried with local peoples, the Iberians, forming the Celt-Iberians. Early Greek explorers named the region "Ophiussa" (Greek for "land of serpents") because the natives worshipped serpents. In 238 BC, the Carthaginians occupied the Mediterranean coasts of the Peninsula. At this time several small tribes occupied the territory, of which the most important ones were the Lusitanian's, who lived between the Douro and Tagus rivers, and the Callaeci who lived north of the Douro river. The Cynetes or Conii, influenced by Tartessos, were long established in Algarve. The Celtici, a later wave of Celts, settled in Alentejo. In 219 BC, the first Roman troops invaded the Iberian Peninsula, driving the Carthaginians out during the Punic Wars. The Roman conquest of Portugal started from the south, where they found friendly natives, the Conii. Over decades, the Romans increased their sphere of control. But in 194 BC a rebellion began in the north, and the Lusitanian's successfully held off the Romans, taking back land and ransacking Conistorgis, the Conii capital, because of their alliance with Rome. Viriathus, born in Lorica, todays Loriga, in Portugal, was the Lusitanian leader. Viriathus waged a successful, protracted war against Rome, which prevailed only by bribing Lusitanian officials to kill their own leader. After the conquest, the process of Romanization began.
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In the 5th century, Germanic tribes, most notably the Suevi and the Visigoths, invaded the Iberian peninsula, set up kingdoms, and became assimilated in the Roman culture of the peninsula. An Islamic invasion took place in 711. Many of the ousted nobles took refuge in the unconquered north Asturian highlands. From there they aimed to re conquer their lands from the Moors. In 868, Count Vímara Peres re conquered and governed the region between the Minho and Douro rivers. The county became known as Portucale (i.e. Portugal), due to its most important city, Portucale (today's Oporto) and founded a town with his name - Vimaranes (today's Guimarães) where he chose to live. While a dependency of the Kingdom of León, Portugal occasionally gained de facto independence during weaker Leonese government, but it lost its autonomy in 1071 due to one of these attempts, ending the rule of the counts of the House of Vímara Peres. Twenty years later, Count Henry from Burgundy was appointed Count of Portugal as a reward for military services to Alfonso VI of León, and given the task of expanding the territory southwards. The County's territory corresponded to what is now northern Portugal, with its capital in Guimarães. Henry died in 1112 and his wife, Theresa took control of the county. The city of Braga, one of the most important Catholic centers of the Iberian Peninsula, faced new competition from other regions. The lords of the cities of Coimbra and Porto, along with the clergy of Braga, demanded the independence of the county. Portugal traces its emergence as a nation to 24 June 1128, by the hand of Afonso Henriques, son of Henry and Theresa, who emerged victorious from the Battle of São Mamede against his mother's retainers. On 5 October 1143 Alfonso VII, king of León and Castile, recognized Afonso as king of Portugal. Only in 1179 would Pope Alexander III formally award Afonso I the Holy See's recognition, through the Manifestis Probatum bull. Afonso and his immediate successors (Sancho I, Afonso II, Sancho II and Afonso III), aided by several military monastic Orders, such as the Knights Templar, the Order of Santiago and the Knights Hospitaller, pushed southward to wrest more land from the Moors. In 1249 the Portuguese Reconquista ended when it reached the southern coast of the Algarve. In an era of several wars when Portugal and Castile tried to control one another, King Ferdinand I died with no male heirs. His only child, Beatrice, had married King John I of Castile who would therefore be the King of Portugal after Ferdinand's death. However, the prospect of losing independence to Castile was not acceptable to the majority of the Portuguese, which led to the 1383-1385 Crisis. A faction of petty noblemen and common folk, led by John of Aviz (later John I), with the help of Nuno Álvares Pereira, defeated the Castilians and their Portuguese supporters at Aljubarrota, the most celebrated battle of Portuguese history, on 14 August 1385. John of Aviz, who had been made king at the Coimbra Cortes in April 1385, continued the war, intermittently, until the final peace treaty of Medina del Campo (1431). In 1386 Portugal had made alliance with England through the Treaty of Windsor 1386, which included the marriage of King John I with Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt. This alliance, which still stands to this day, is probably the longest in History. |
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In the following decades, conditions arose that would make Portugal spearhead the exploration of the world. The Portuguese bourgeoisie, who had supported and helped the victorious King, had quickly risen up through the social ranks of Portugal, creating a new, dynamic generation which allowed the discoveries to proceed. On 25 July 1415, the Portuguese Empire began when a Portuguese fleet led by King John I departed to besiege and conquer Ceuta in North Africa, a rich Islamic trade center. On 21 August the city fell. In 1418 two captains of Prince Henry the Navigator were driven by a storm to an island which they called Porto Santo, or Holy Port, thankful that they had been spared from shipwreck. Also in the early 15th century, Madeira Island and the Azorean islands were discovered. Henry the Navigator's interest in exploration, along with some technological developments in navigation, made Portugal's expansion possible and led to great advances in geographic knowledge. In 1434, Gil Eanes sailed past Cape Bojador, south of Morocco. The trip marked the beginning of the Portuguese exploration of Africa. At the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th centuries, those who tried to venture there became lost, giving birth to legends of sea monsters. Fourteen years later, on a small island known as Arguim, off the coast of Mauritania a castle was built, functioning as a trading outpost for commerce with inland Africa. Some time later, using caravels, a kind of ship the Portuguese invented to help with the explorations, the Gulf of Guinea was explored, leading to the discovery of several uninhabited islands. The Congo River was reached during one such foray. After the Portuguese reached India, in 1498, they made many discoveries, leading to economic prosperity. However, the Portuguese population in the entire kingdom numbered only about one million. Hence, new territory was being both charted and acquired, but there were not enough people to settle the colonies. So, to protect them and the trade routes, Portugal kept a high level of secrecy. This policy has proven frustrating for historians, as some areas may have been discovered before the commonly held dates. It has even been alleged that the Portuguese may have known of the Americas before the voyage of Columbus. Some experts claim that Colombus was in fact Portuguese, while others forward the hypothesis that he was not only Portuguese but a "double agent" trying to keep the Spanish out of the Indian trade routes. A remarkable achievement was the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartolomeu Dias in 1487. By then the spices of India were nearby, hence the name of the cape. In the last decade of the 15th century, Pêro de Barcelos and João Fernandes Lavrador explored North America , Pêro da Covilhã reached Ethiopia, searching for the mythical kingdom of Prester John, and Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498. In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral landed on the Brazilian coast. Ten years later, Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Goa, in India, Ormuz in the Persian Straight, and Malacca in modern day Malaysia as to ensure Portuguese dominion of the commerce in the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese kings eventually adopted the title of Rei de Portugal e dos Algarves d'Aquém e d'Além-mar em África, Senhor da Guiné, e da Conquista, Navegação e Comércio da Etiópia, Arábia, Pérsia e Índia - King of Portugal and of the Algarves, on this side and overseas in Africa, Lord of Guinea, and of the Conquest, Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and of India. In 1578, the young King Sebastian decided to enlarge Portuguese possessions in northern Africa and, despite having no son and heir to the throne, decided to go into battle personally, where he is said to have been slain. Because Philip II of Spain was the son of a Portuguese princess, he became Philip I of Portugal in 1581. Portugal formally maintained its independent law, currency, colonies, and government, under a personal union between Portugal and Spain. New empires had emerged and started to harass the Portuguese Empire. The third Habsburg king, Philip III tried to further enforce integration, openly attacking the Portuguese nobility that was not in his favor. In 1 December 1640, the Duke of Bragança, of the Portuguese Royal Family, John IV, was hailed as king after a rebellious uprising backed by disgruntled Portuguese nobles, and a Restoration War was fought for 28 years in Europe, Brazil and Africa.
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The 1755 Lisbon earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than a third of capital's population and devastated the Algarve as well, had a profound effect on domestic politics and on European philosophical thought. In 1807, the Portuguese Court fled to Brazil, while the country was occupied during the Napoleonic Wars. Shortly after, Brazil proclaimed its independence, under the rule of the Portuguese King Pedro IV (Emperor Pedro I of Brazil), who abdicated from the Portuguese Crown and left his daughter D. Maria II as Queen in a liberal regime. The Portuguese 19th Century is marked by Liberalism. The divisions between king Pedro IV - liberal - and his brother, King Miguel, a conservative who overthrew Queen Maria II, led to the civil war between 1832 and 1834 and the signing of the new constitution in 1838. The political and social evolution of the late 19th century was marked by instability.
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In 1910 a republican revolution deposed the Portuguese monarchy, starting the First Republic. Political chaos, strikes, a deteriorated relationship with the Catholic Church, and considerable economic problems aggravated by a disastrous military intervention in the First World War led to a military coup d'état on May 28 of 1926, later, the military administration gave way to the New State in 1933, led by António de Oliveira Salazar. This New State was a right-wing, Catholic dictatorship. The regime dominated the country during the following decades, helped by a strong political police, the PIDE. In the early 1960s, independence movements became active in the colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea, starting the colonial wars. The burden of the many colonial overseas wars and the lack of political and civil liberties led to the end of the regime after the Carnation Revolution in April 25 of 1974, a bloodless left-wing military coup that instated a democratic regime. In 1975, Portugal had its first free elections since 1926 and granted independence to its colonies in Africa. During the post-revolutionary period, the left-wing promoted several changes, such as the nationalization of the key sectors of the economy and the creation of a social welfare network. In 1976, a democratic Constitution, still in force today, was approved. Immediately after the revolution, membership in the EEC became an objective of the new government. This was achieved in 1986; since then Portugal has been engaged in a process of economic convergence. However, the country remains one of the least developed in the EU. In 1999 the Asian dependency of Macau was returned to Chinese sovereignty, a process considered a success by China and Portugal, signaling the end of the Portuguese colonial rule |
Portugal Information: Inside
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