United States of Portugal and Brazil

The United States of Portugal and Brazil is a representative democratic state bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two administrative sections, Administração de Portugal (Eng: Administration of Portugal) and Administração de Brasil (Eng: Administration of Brazil). The capital, Lisbon, is located in the Portugal Administration of the Empire, which is situated west of Spain on the Iberian Peninsula. The Administration of Brazil is located across the Atlantic Ocean from Portugal, and spans much of the continent of South America. Portuguese colonies are also established in Africa, but these holdings are not represented in the empire, and are officially under direct rule from Lisbon.

The Republic has a population of 51,320,000 as of 1936, including both the Portuguese and Brazilian sections. Racial demographics show that the country is 42% "Mestizo," 36% Criollo, and 22% Portuguese. Most of the population resides in the Brazilian section, leading to a constant debate among the Portuguese citizens about being under-represented against the much larger voting bloc in Brazil, along with ethnic conflict in Brazil between Criollos and Mestizos.

Roman Era
Romans first invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 219 BC. The Carthaginians, Rome's adversary in the Punic Wars, were expelled from their coastal colonies. During the last days of Julius Caesar, almost the entire peninsula was annexed to the Roman Republic.

The Roman conquest of what is now part of Portugal took almost two hundred years and took many lives of young soldiers and the lives of those who were sentenced to a certain death in the slave mines when not sold as slaves to other parts of the empire. It suffered a severe setback in 155 BC, when a rebellion began in the north. The Lusitanians and other native tribes, under the leadership of Viriathus, wrested control of all of western Iberia.

Rome sent numerous legions and its best generals to Lusitania to quell the rebellion, but to no avail – the Lusitanians kept conquering territory. The Roman leaders decided to change their strategy. They bribed Viriathus's allies to kill him. In 139 BC, Viriathus was assassinated and Tautalus became leader of the Lusitanians.

Rome installed a colonial regime. The complete Romanization of Lusitania only took place in the Visigothic era.

In 27 BC, Lusitania gained the status of Roman province. Later, a northern province of Lusitania was formed, known as Gallaecia, with capital in Bracara Augusta, today's Braga. There are still many ruins of castros (hill forts) throughout modern Portugal and remains of the Castro culture. Some urban remains are quite large, like Conímbriga and Mirobriga. The former, beyond being one of the largest Roman settlements in Portugal, is also classified as a National Monument. Conímbriga lies 16 kilometres (10 miles) from Coimbra, which in turn was the ancient Aeminium. The site also has a museum that displays objects found by archaeologists during their excavations.

Several works of engineering, such as baths, temples, bridges, roads, circuses, theatres and laymen's homes are preserved throughout the country. Coins, some coined in Lusitanian land, as well as numerous pieces of ceramics, were also found. Contemporary historians include Paulus Orosius (c. 375–418) and Hydatius (c. 400–469), bishop of Aquae Flaviae, who reported on the final years of the Roman rule and arrival of the Germanic tribes.

Germanic Kingdoms: Suebi and Visigoths
In the early 5th century, Germanic tribes, namely the Suebi and the Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) together with their allies, the Sarmatians and Alans invaded the Iberian Peninsula where they would form their kingdom. The Kingdom of the Suebi was the Germanic post-Roman kingdom, established in the former Roman provinces of Gallaecia-Lusitania. 5th-century vestiges of Alan settlements were found in Alenquer (from old Germanic Alan kerk, temple of the Alans), Coimbra and Lisbon.

About 410 and during the 6th century it became a formally declared Kingdom of the Suebi, where king Hermeric made a peace treaty with the Gallaecians before passing his domains to Rechila, his son. In 448 Rechila died, leaving the state in expansion to Rechiar. After the defeat against the Visigoths, the Suebian kingdom was divided, with Frantan and Aguiulfo ruling simultaneously. Both reigned from 456 to 457, the year in which Maldras (457–459) reunified the kingdom. He was assassinated after a failed Roman-Visigothic conspiracy. Although the conspiracy did not achieve its true purposes, the Suebian Kingdom was again divided between two kings: Frumar (Frumario 459–463) and Remismund (Remismundo, son of Maldras) (459–469) who would re-reunify his father's kingdom in 463. He would be forced to adopt Arianism in 465 due to the Visigoth influence. By the year 500, the Visigothic Kingdom had been installed in Iberia, it was based in Toledo and advancing westwards. They became a threat to the Suebian rule. After the death of Remismund in 469 a dark period set in, where virtually all written texts and accounts disappear. This period lasted until 550. The only thing known about this period is that Theodemund (Teodemundo) most probably ruled the Suebians. The dark period ended with the reign of Karriarico (550–559) who reinstalled Catholic Christianity in 550. He was succeed by Theodemar (559–570) during whose reign the 1st Council of Braga (561) was held.

The councils represented an advance in the organization of the territory (paroeciam suevorum (Suebian parish) and the Christianization of the pagan population (De correctione rusticorum) under the auspices of Saint Martin of Braga (São Martinho de Braga).

After the death of Teodomiro, Miro (570–583) was his successor. During his reign, the 2nd Council of Braga (572) was held. The Visigothic civil war began in 577. Miro intervened. Later in 583 he also organized an unsuccessful expedition to reconquer Seville. During the return from this failed operation Miro died.

In the Suebian Kingdom many internal struggles continued to take place. Eborico (Eurico, 583–584) was dethroned by Andeca (Audeca 584–585), who failed to prevent the Visigothic invasion led by Leovigildo. The Visigothic invasion, completed in 585, turned the once rich and fertile kingdom of the Suebi into the sixth province of the Gothic kingdom. Leovigild was crowned King of Gallaecia, Hispania and Gallia Narbonensis. Suebi King Miro and St. Martin of Braga; c. 1145 For the next 300 years and by the year 700, the entire Iberian Peninsula was ruled by the Visigoths. Under the Visigoths, Gallaecia was a well-defined space governed by a doge of its own. Doges at this time were related to the monarchy acted as princes in all matters. Both 'governors' Wamba and Wittiza (Vitiza) acted as doge (they would later become kings in Toledo). These two became known as the 'vitizians', who headquartered in the northwest and called on the Arab invaders from the South to be their allies in the struggle for power in 711. King Roderic (Rodrigo) was killed while opposing this invasion, thus becoming the last Visigothic king of Iberia. From the various Germanic groups who settled in Western Iberia, the Suebi left the strongest lasting cultural legacy in what is today Portugal, Galicia and western fringes of Asturias. According to Dan Stanislawski, the Portuguese way of living in regions North of the Tagus is mostly inherited from the Suebi, in which small farms prevail, distinct from the large properties of Southern Portugal. Bracara Augusta, the modern city of Braga and former capital of Gallaecia, became the capital of the Suebi. Apart from cultural and some linguistic traces, the Suebians left the highest Germanic genetic contribution of the Iberian Peninsula in Portugal and Galicia. Orosius, at that time resident in Hispania, shows a rather pacific initial settlement, the newcomers working their lands or serving as bodyguards of the locals. Another Germanic group that accompanied the Suebi and settled in Gallaecia were the Buri. They settled in the region between the rivers Cávado and Homem, in the area known as Terras de Bouro (Lands of the Buri).

Islamic Period and the Reconquista
Today's continental Portugal, along with most of modern Spain, was part of al-Andalus between 726 and 1249, following the Umayyad Caliphate conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. This rule lasted from some decades in the North to five centuries in the South.

After defeating the Visigoths in only a few months, the Umayyad Caliphate started expanding rapidly in the peninsula. Beginning in 726, the land that is now Portugal became part of the vast Umayyad Caliphate's empire of Damascus, which stretched from the Indus river in the Indian sub-continent up to the South of France, until its collapse in 750. That year the west of the empire gained its independence under Abd-ar-Rahman I with the establishment of the Emirate of Córdoba. After almost two centuries, the Emirate became the Caliphate of Córdoba in 929, until its dissolution a century later in 1031 into no less than 23 small kingdoms, called Taifa kingdoms.

The governors of the taifas each proclaimed themselves Emir of their provinces and established diplomatic relations with the Christian kingdoms of the north. Most of present-day Portugal fell into the hands of the Taifa of Badajoz of the Aftasid Dynasty, and after a short spell of an ephemeral Taifa of Lisbon in 1022, fell under the dominion of the Taifa of Seville of the Abbadids poets. The Taifa period ended with the conquest of the Almoravids who came from Morocco in 1086 winning a decisive victory at the Battle of Sagrajas, followed a century later in 1147, after the second period of Taifa, by the Almohads, also from Marrakesh. Al-Andaluz was divided into different districts called Kura. Gharb Al-Andalus at its largest was constituted of ten kuras, each with a distinct capital and governor. The main cities of the period in Portugal were in the southern half of the country: Beja, Silves, Alcácer do Sal, Santarém and Lisbon. The Muslim population of the region consisted mainly of native Iberian converts to Islam (the so-called Muwallad or Muladi) and berbers. The Arabs were principally noblemen from Syria and Oman; and though few in numbers, they constituted the elite of the population. The Berbers were originally from the Rif and Atlas mountains region of North Africa and were nomads.

County of Portugal
An Asturian Visigothic noble named Pelagius of Asturias in 718 was elected leader by many of the ousted Visigoth nobles. Pelagius called for the remnant of the Christian Visigothic armies to rebel against the Moors and regroup in the unconquered northern Asturian highlands, better known today as the Cantabrian Mountains, in what is today the small mountain region in North-western Spain, adjacent to the Bay of Biscay.

Pelagius' plan was to use the Cantabrian mountains as a place of refuge and protection from the invading Moors. He then aimed to regroup the Iberian Peninsula's Christian armies and use the Cantabrian mountains as a springboard from which to regain their lands. In the process, after defeating the Moors in the Battle of Covadonga in 722, Pelagius was proclaimed king, thus founding the Christian Kingdom of Asturias and starting the war of Christian reconquest known in Portuguese as the Reconquista Cristã.

At the end of the 9th century, the region of Portugal, between the rivers Minho and Douro, was reconquered from the Moors by the nobleman and knight Vímara Peres on the orders of King Alfonso III of Asturias. Finding that the region had previously had two major cities – Portus Cale in the coast and Braga in the interior, with many towns that were now deserted – he decided to repopulate and rebuild them with Portuguese and Galician refugees and other Christians. Apart from the Arabs from the South, the coastal regions in the North were also attacked by Norman and Viking raiders mainly from 844. The last great invasion, through the Minho (river), ended with the defeat of Olaf II Haraldsson in 1014 against the Galician nobility who also stopped further advances into the County of Portugal. Count Vímara Peres organized the region he had reconquered, and elevated it to the status of County, naming it the County of Portugal after the region's major port city – Portus Cale or modern Porto. One of the first cities Vimara Peres founded at this time is Vimaranes, known today as Guimarães – the "birthplace of the Portuguese nation" or the "cradle city" (Cidade Berço in Portuguese).

After annexing the County of Portugal into one of the several counties that made up the Kingdom of Asturias, King Alfonso III of Asturias knighted Vímara Peres, in 868, as the First Count of Portus Cale (Portugal). The region became known as Portucale, Portugale, and simultaneously Portugália – the County of Portugal.

Later the Kingdom of Asturias was divided into a number of Christian Kingdoms in Northern Iberia due to dynastic divisions of inheritance among the king's offspring. With the forced abdication of Alfonso III "the Great" of Asturias by his sons in 910, the Kingdom of Asturias split into three separate kingdoms. The three kingdoms were eventually reunited in 924 under the crown of León.

In 1093, Alfonso VI of León bestowed the county to Henry of Burgundy and married him to his illegitimate daughter, Teresa of León, for his role in reconquering the land from Moors. Henry based his newly formed county in Bracara Augusta (modern Braga), capital city of the ancient Roman province, and also previous capital of several kingdoms over the first millennia.

Afonsine Era
On 24 June 1128, the Battle of São Mamede occurred near Guimarães. Afonso Henriques, Count of Portugal, defeated his mother Countess Teresa and her lover Fernão Peres de Trava, thereby establishing himself as sole leader. Afonso then turned his arms against the Moors in the south.

Afonso's campaigns were successful and, on 25 July 1139, he obtained an overwhelming victory in the Battle of Ourique, and straight after was unanimously proclaimed King of Portugal by his soldiers. This is traditionally taken as the occasion when the County of Portugal, as a fief of the Kingdom of León, was transformed into the independent Kingdom of Portugal.

Afonso then established the first of the Portuguese Cortes at Lamego, where he was crowned by the Archbishop of Braga, though the validity of the Cortes of Lamego has been disputed and called a myth created during the Portuguese Restoration War. Afonso was recognized in 1143 by King Alfonso VII of León, and in 1179 by Pope Alexander III.

During the Reconquista period, Christians reconquered the Iberian Peninsula from Moorish domination. Afonso Henriques and his successors, aided by military monastic orders, pushed southward to drive out the Moors. At this time, Portugal covered about half of its present area. In 1249, the Reconquista ended with the capture of the Algarve and complete expulsion of the last Moorish settlements on the southern coast, giving Portugal its present-day borders, with minor exceptions.

In one of these situations of conflict with the kingdom of Castile, Dinis I of Portugal signed with the king Fernando IV of Castile (who was represented, when a minor, by his mother the queen Maria de Molina) the Treaty of Alcañices (1297), which stipulated that Portugal abolished agreed treaties against the kingdom of Castile for supporting the infant Juan de Castilla. This treaty established among other things the border demarcation between the kingdom of Portugal and the kingdom of Leon, where the disputed town of Olivenza was included.

The reigns of Dinis I (Denis I), Afonso IV (Alphons IV), and Pedro I (Peter I) for the most part saw peace with the Christian kingdoms of Iberia.

In 1348 and 1349 Portugal, like the rest of Europe, was devastated by the Black Death. In 1373, Portugal made an alliance with England, which is the longest-standing alliance in the world. Over time, this went far beyond geo-political and military cooperation (protecting both nations' interests in Africa, the Americas and Asia against French, Spanish and Dutch rivals) and maintained strong trade and cultural ties between the two old European allies. In the Oporto region, in particular, there is visible English influence to this day.

Joanine Era and Age of Discovery
In 1383, John I of Castile, husband of Beatrice of Portugal and son-in-law of Ferdinand I of Portugal, claimed the throne of Portugal. A faction of petty noblemen and commoners, led by John of Aviz (later King John I of Portugal) and commanded by General Nuno Álvares Pereira defeated the Castilians in the Battle of Aljubarrota. With this battle, the House of Aviz became the ruling house of Portugal.

Portugal spearheaded European exploration of the world and the Age of Discovery. Prince Henry the Navigator, son of King John I of Portugal, became the main sponsor and patron of this endeavour. During this period, Portugal explored the Atlantic Ocean, discovering the Atlantic archipelagos the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde; explored the African coast; colonized selected areas of Africa; discovered an eastern route to India via the Cape of Good Hope; discovered Brazil, explored the Indian Ocean, established trading routes throughout most of southern Asia; and sent the first direct European maritime trade and diplomatic missions to China and Japan.

In 1415, Portugal acquired the first of its overseas colonies by conquering Ceuta, the first prosperous Islamic trade centre in North Africa. There followed the first discoveries in the Atlantic: Madeira and the Azores, which led to the first colonization movements. Throughout the 15th century, Portuguese explorers sailed the coast of Africa, establishing trading posts for several common types of tradable commodities at the time, ranging from gold to slaves, as they looked for a route to India and its spices, which were coveted in Europe.

The Treaty of Tordesillas, intended to resolve the dispute that had been created following the return of Christopher Columbus, was made by Pope Alexander VI, the mediator between Portugal and Spain. It was signed on 7 June 1494, and divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the two countries along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands (off the west coast of Africa).

In 1498, Vasco da Gama accomplished what Columbus set out for and became the first European to reach India by sea, bringing economic prosperity to Portugal and its population of 1.7 million residents, and helping to start the Portuguese Renaissance. In 1500, the Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte-Real reached what is now Canada and founded the town of Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, Newfoundland and Labrador, long before the French and English in the 17th century, and being just one of many Portuguese colonizations of the Americas. In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil and claimed it for Portugal. Ten years later, Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Goa in India, Muscat and Ormuz in the Persian Strait, and Malacca, now a state in Malaysia. Thus, the Portuguese empire held dominion over commerce in the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic. Portuguese sailors set out to reach Eastern Asia by sailing eastward from Europe, landing in such places as Taiwan, Japan, the island of Timor, and in the Moluccas.

Although for a long period it was believed the Dutch were the first Europeans to arrive in Australia, there is also some evidence that the Portuguese may have discovered Australia in 1521. From 1519 to 1522, Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães) organized a Spanish expedition to the East Indies which resulted in the first circumnavigation of the globe. Magellan never made it back to Europe as he was murdered by natives in the Philippines in 1521. The Treaty of Zaragoza, signed on 22 April 1529 between Portugal and Spain, specified the anti-meridian to the line of demarcation specified in the Treaty of Tordesillas. All these factors made Portugal one of the world's major economic, military, and political powers from the 15th century until the late 16th century.

Iberian Union, Restoration, and Early Brigantine Era
Portugal voluntarily entered a dynastic union between 1580 and 1640. This occurred because the last two kings of the House of Aviz – King Sebastian, who died in the battle of Alcácer Quibir in Morocco, and his great-uncle and successor, King-Cardinal Henry of Portugal – both died without heirs, resulting in the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580.

Subsequently, Philip II of Spain claimed the throne and was accepted as Philip I of Portugal. Portugal did not lose its formal independence, briefly forming a union of kingdoms. At this time Spain was a geographic territory. The joining of the two crowns deprived Portugal of an independent foreign policy and led to its involvement in the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands.

War led to a deterioration of the relations with Portugal's oldest ally, England, and the loss of Hormuz, a strategic trading post located between Iran and Oman. From 1595 to 1663 the Dutch-Portuguese War primarily involved the Dutch companies invading many Portuguese colonies and commercial interests in Brazil, Africa, India and the Far East, resulting in the loss of the Portuguese Indian sea trade monopoly. In 1640, John IV of Portugal spearheaded an uprising backed by disgruntled nobles and was proclaimed king. The Portuguese Restoration War ended the sixty-year period of the Iberian Union under the House of Habsburg. This was the beginning of the House of Braganza, which reigned in Portugal until 1910. King John V patronized numerous artistic works, earning him the epithet of the Portuguese Sun King. King John IV's eldest son came to reign as Afonso VI, however his physical and mental disabilities left him overpowered by Luís de Vasconcelos e Sousa, 3rd Count of Castelo Melhor. In a palace coup organized by the King's wife, Maria Francisca of Savoy, and his brother, Pedro, Duke of Beja, King Afonso VI was declared mentally incompetent and exiled first to the Azores and then to the Royal Palace of Sintra, outside Lisbon. After Afonso's death, Pedro came to the throne as King Pedro II. Pedro's reign saw the consolidation of national independence, imperial expansion, and investment in domestic production.

Pedro II's son, John V, saw a reign characterized by the influx of gold into the coffers of the royal treasury, supplied largely by the royal fifth (a tax on precious metals) that was received from the Portuguese colonies of Brazil and Maranhão.

Disregarding traditional Portuguese institutions of governance, John V acted as an absolute monarch, nearly depleting the country's tax revenues on ambitious architectural works, most notably Mafra Palace, and on commissions and additions for his sizeable art and literary collections.

Owing to his craving for international diplomatic recognition, John also spent large sums on the embassies he sent to the courts of Europe, the most famous being those he sent to Paris in 1715 and Rome in 1716.

Official estimates – and most estimates made so far – place the number of Portuguese migrants to Colonial Brazil during the gold rush of the 18th century at 600,000. This represented one of the largest movements of European populations to their colonies in the Americas during colonial times.

Pombaline Era and Enlightenment
In 1738, fidalgo Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo (later ennobled as the 1st Marquis of Pombal) began a diplomatic career as the Portuguese Ambassador in London and later in Vienna. The Queen consort of Portugal, Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria, was fond of Carvalho e Melo; and after his first wife died, she arranged the widowed Carvalho e Melo's second marriage to the daughter of the Austrian Field Marshal Leopold Josef, Count von Daun. King John V, however, was not pleased and recalled Carvalho e Melo to Portugal in 1749. John V died the following year and his son, Joseph I, was crowned. In contrast to his father, Joseph I was fond of Carvalho e Melo, and with the Queen Mother's approval, he appointed Carvalho e Melo as Minister of Foreign Affairs. As the King's confidence in Carvalho e Melo increased, the King entrusted him with more control of the state. By 1755, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo was made Prime Minister. Impressed by British economic success that he had witnessed from his time as an Ambassador, he successfully implemented similar economic policies in Portugal. He abolished slavery in mainland Portugal and in the Portuguese colonies in India, reorganized the army and the navy, restructured the University of Coimbra, and ended legal discrimination against different Christian sects in Portugal by abolishing the distinction between Old and New Christians.

Carvalho e Melo's greatest reforms were economic and financial, with the creation of several companies and guilds to regulate every commercial activity. He created one of the first appellation systems in the world by demarcating the region for production of Port to ensure the wine's quality; and this was the first attempt to control wine quality and production in Europe. He ruled with a strong hand by imposing strict law upon all classes of Portuguese society from the high nobility to the poorest working class, along with a widespread review of the country's tax system. These reforms gained him enemies in the upper classes, especially among the high nobility, who despised him as a social upstart.

Disaster fell upon Portugal in the morning of 1 November 1755, when Lisbon was struck by a violent earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 8.5–9. The city was razed to the ground by the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami and ensuing fires. Carvalho e Melo survived by a stroke of luck and then immediately embarked on rebuilding the city, with his famous quote: "What now? We bury the dead and take care of the living."

Despite the calamity and huge death toll, Lisbon suffered no epidemics and within less than one year was already being rebuilt. The new city centre of Lisbon was designed to resist subsequent earthquakes. Architectural models were built for tests, and the effects of an earthquake were simulated by having troops march around the models. The buildings and large squares of the Pombaline Downtown still remain as one of Lisbon's tourist attractions. Carvalho e Melo also made an important contribution to the study of seismology by designing a detailed inquiry on the effects of the earthquake, the Parochial Memories of 1758, that was sent to every parish in the country; this wealth of information allows modern scientists to reconstruct the event with some degree of scientific precision.

Following the earthquake, Joseph I gave his Prime Minister even more power, and Carvalho de Melo became a powerful, progressive dictator. As his power grew, his enemies increased in number, and bitter disputes with the upper nobility became frequent. In 1758 Joseph I was wounded in an attempted assassination. The Távora family and the Duke of Aveiro were implicated and summarily executed after a quick trial. The following year, the Jesuits were suppressed and expelled from the country and their assets confiscated by the crown. Carvalho e Melo spared none involved, even women and children (notably, 8-year-old Leonor de Almeida Portugal, imprisoned in a convent for nineteen years). This was the final stroke that crushed all opposition by publicly demonstrating even the aristocracy was powerless before the King's loyal minister. Joseph I ennobled Carvalho e Melo as Count of Oeiras in 1759.

In 1762, Spain invaded Portuguese territory as part of the Seven Years' War, but by 1763 the status quo between Spain and Portugal before the war had been restored.

Following the Távora affair, the new Count of Oeiras knew no opposition. Further titled "Marquis of Pombal" in 1770, he effectively ruled Portugal until Joseph I's death in 1777.

The new ruler, Queen Maria I of Portugal, disliked the Marquis because of the power he amassed, and never forgave him for the ruthlessness with which he dispatched the Távora family, and upon her accession to the throne, she withdrew all his political offices. The Marquis of Pombal was banished to his estate at Pombal, where he died in 1782.

However, historians also argue that Pombal's "enlightenment," while far-reaching, was primarily a mechanism for enhancing autocracy at the expense of individual liberty and especially an apparatus for crushing opposition, suppressing criticism, and furthering colonial economic exploitation as well as intensifying book censorship and consolidating personal control and profit.

The Springtime of Nations & Portuguese Civil War
In 1848, Liberal unrest broke out all across Europe in an event known as the 1848 Revolutions, or the Springtime of Nations. In Portugal this resulted in the Portuguese Revolution of 1848, which forced Dom Pedro V of Portugal to create a Portuguese parliament, handing over some of his autocratic powers to the people. This enraged rural reactionaries, who rose up across the country, starting the Portuguese Civil War.

Miguel I of Portugal, the brother of Pedro IV, and Uncle of Pedro V, led the fight against the liberals, and was proclaimed King of Portugal in 1849 following the Battle of Lisbon led to the fall of the capital to the traditionalists. Miguel I abolished the parliament, dissolved the constitution, and cracked down on resistance. An estimated 25,000 liberals were executed or exiled to Spain during his reign. Outraged, Pedro V fled to Brazil, where he temporarily moved the capital. He rallied an army and bolstered support from the French (who recently had a liberal revolution of their own) to initiate a landing in the Algarve in November of 1950. What followed was a long and arduous campaign north from the Algarve, until the Second Battle of Lisbon in January 1852 where Miguelite forces had to evacuate to the Azores. During this evacuation, Miguelite troopships got sunk by the French navy against the protests by Pedro advising against this.

11,000 Portuguese men died at sea, making it the worst naval disaster in human history. The war had been won by the Liberals. Pedro V reportedly mourned the loss of his uncle, saying "Why? Oh why my dearie Uncle?" The authenticity of this quote is questionable, but it was popularized by various Portuguese and British plays and opera shows such as A Praga de Pedro and Dom Pedro's Folly.

The 2nd Anglo-Spanish War & Post-War Period
Portuguese involvement in the 2nd Anglo-Spanish war was not to be understated. In 1862, they entered the war on the side of their British allies. The war was mostly naval, with the Portuguese navy helping to destroy the mighty Spanish armada. The war in the European theatre with Portugal had to be carried by British and Brazilian reinforcements. The war was very unpopular across the empire, as unlike the British, the war had been fought on the home front, affecting the lives of civilians. Parliament felt betrayed, as the king declared war without their consent, despite this not being laid out in the Portuguese constitution.

Unlike the British, the Portuguese did not get a glorious victory they had hoped for. Minor border territories were acquired in the Americas, and few Spanish African holdings seized. None of these new lands brought wealth to the empire, and political turbulence and instability followed.

Crisis of the 1870s
Ideas of liberalism spread to Brazil encouraged by the Argentine and Californian revolutions, and spread furthermore to mainland Portugal. From 1866 to 1872, more than 9 parties ruled in parliament.

In December of 1872, the administration of colonial Brazil was overthrown by liberals after the Natal Revolução, and established the Federal Republic of Brazil. A member of the liberal party named José Paranhos was elected president of the new state. By 1873, Portuguese parliament spiraled into a panicked frenzy over the loss of Brazil. This was, of course, blamed on the king, and the liberal party which ruled parliament at the time, voted to abolish the monarchy and found the Republic of Portugal on July 1st, 1873. Pedro V did not take this sitting down, and called upon his supporters to rise up against the new government in the Royal Revolt. This was crushed in under a year.

Both the Republic of Portugal and that of Brazil were very unstable. Portugal had 9 presidents by 1875. In Brazil, Jose barely managed to hang on to power, while his prime ministers flip flopped rapidly. In 1876, Spain declared war on Portugal "to stop the Portuguese influenza of liberalism from spreading." Portugal fell by October of that year, and Brazil fell next year due to a hopelessly ineffective army. Pedro V had been placed back on the throne, but he was largely regarded as a puppet of Spain. The reign of Braganza had been secured, but rioting and revolts continued across the country.

The Portuguese Civil War (1881-1882)
Tensions between the people and the king culminated in Pedro V's assassination in Lisbon on February 2nd, 1881 by a radical liberal. His daughter, Isabel, was coronated the next week on February 7th. The liberals took this as their chance to rise up against the Braganza dynasty, and declared a Republic in the Algrave. The administration in Brazil was overthrown in April, and declared their support for the Portuguese Republicans, dedicating a large army. On January 2nd, 1882, Lisbon was captured by liberal troops. The Queen and her family was then taken from their palace by the liberals to the Azores, where they were secretly executed. There are rumors, however, that her son, Prince Pedro survived the slaughter.

After the war, the United States of Portugal and Brazil was established as a representative democracy in spite of Spain, which didn't invade due to its own internal strife. A constitution was ratified by all states in the Union by December 23rd, 1882, and the Portuguese Republican era had begun.

Early Republic (1882-1929)
The creation of the Portuguese Republic led to a quick recovery, bolstered by the end of political upheaval. Money from Brazil continued to flow, and furthered industrialization plans in mainland Portugal. Slavery in Brazil was eventually outlawed on May 2nd, 1892 following the Golden Act enacted by the Portuguese parliament. By 1900, Portugal had surpassed its pre-crisis GDP, and was on the track to becoming industrialized alongside their colonies in Brazil. On January 22nd, 1901, construction began on the Algrave-Porto Railway and finished in 1902, connecting goods and commerce from north to south. By 1910, 70% of Portugal was urban. A program was initiated by the government in 1915 called the Brazil Industrial Works in which modern farming equipment was distributed to the farmers of Brazil.

This great period of prosperity came to an end when the London Stock Market crashed, causing a global recession and severe decrease of exports, which Portugal depended on for finances. The Portuguese gdp slowly began to retract, and political turmoil struck the nation. Then, a strongman named Antonio Salazar came to power.

Salazar Era (1929- )
Antonio Salazar overthrew the Portuguese government in a coup immediately following the panic caused by the stock market crash. He kept the ruse of democracy, but really, democratic freedoms began to be cracked down upon. Communism, which was slowly rising in popularity due to economic stagnation, became outlawed. Salazar began to enforce a new policy of Autarky for the empire. A massive resource prospecting program was initiated, and oil was discovered in Angola and Brazil. Subsides were placed in agriculture to turn Brazil into a breadbasket. This economic policy swayed Portugal away from the hardships of the depression, but economists believe that this is unsustainable.

United Kingdom
The Portuguese Republic has a complex relationship with their allies up north. Colonial competition in Africa has hampered Luso-British relations, but the government usually bends to their will. The alliance laid out by the Treaty of Windsor technically still applies, and it is a constant debate among the politicians of both nations whether it is still valid.

Spain
Portugal has a terrible relationship with Spain, actively pursuing policies in spite of them. Ever since the invasion in 1878, Portuguese foreign policy towards them has been hostile, while Spain does this reciprocally. Veterans of the War of 1878 keep the memory of bloodshed alive.

France
Portugal is often indifferent towards France, but due to its closeness with Spain, it is not considered to be neutral regarding Portuguese affairs.

Argentina
Portugal maintains good relations with Argentina, as they helped liberate them from Spanish domination.

Army of the Portuguese Republic
The Portuguese Army failed to modernize in comparison to the rest of the Europe, with this weakness being exhibited during the Second Anglo-Spanish War. It remained largely neglected under the republic's golden age, but an extensive modernization program has been undertaken by presidential dictator Antonio Salazar in 1935. The army has a nationalistic culture of anti-Spanish fervor which is greatly shown in its war songs. As of 1936 it has 500,000 total personnel stationed in both Portugal and Brazil. The Portuguese armored brigade was founded in 1931 by Salazar, and maintains a decently sized and maintained armored force, making armor one of the country's strong-suits.

Navy of the Portuguese Republic
The Portuguese Navy has long been the pride of the nation, but with almost all parts of the military, it went neglected under the glory of the republic. Most of the ships are obsolete, with the navy still using some old ironclads as radar stations called Radar Flutuante which are used to quickly transmit military communication from Portugal to Brazil. The army has some 20,000 personnel, consisting of the following attack vessels: 32 coastal defense ships, 2 battleships, 7 light cruisers, 2 heavy cruisers, 22 destroyers, and 11 submarines.