The history of Lisbon

Lisbon is one of western Europe's oldest cities, older than Rome according to some historians. Its position on a great natural harbour at the mouth of the Tagus has made it a crossroads of peoples and trade for millennia. It is part of the Lisbon guide; for the national picture see the history of Portugal.

From the origins to the Moors

A legend credits Ulysses with founding Lisbon, and the name Olisipo seems to echo it; in fact it was probably a Phoenician trading post. The Romans made it a prosperous municipium, with a theatre, baths and fish-sauce factories, whose remains can be seen beneath the Baixa and around the Sé. After the Visigoths, the Moors arrived in 714 and stayed over four centuries: the city, al-Ushbuna, grew around the castle and Alfama, and their mark remains in names, the pattern of lanes and the art of azulejos.

Conquest and capital

In 1147 Portugal's first king, Afonso Henriques, captured Lisbon after a four-month siege, helped by English, Flemish and German crusaders bound for the Holy Land. In 1255 the city replaced Coimbra as capital of the kingdom. In the Middle Ages it grew into a great trading port, open to Genoese and Florentine merchants.

The Age of Discovery

In the 15th and 16th centuries Lisbon became one of the world's richest cities. From Belém sailed the expeditions that opened the route to the Indies and reached Brazil, Africa, China and Japan. Spices, gold, sugar, silk and porcelain arrived on the Tagus, and King Manuel I built the Jerónimos and Belém Tower. But it was also a port of the African slave trade, a chapter the city now marks with a memorial. In 1496 Jews were forced to convert, and in 1506 a massacre struck the "New Christians". See the Portuguese empire.

The 1755 earthquake

On the morning of 1 November 1755, with the city in church for All Saints' Day, an earthquake of an estimated magnitude around 8.5 levelled much of Lisbon. Half an hour later a tsunami surged up the Tagus, and fires raged for days. Perhaps 30,000 to 50,000 people died. The catastrophe shook Europe: Voltaire made it central to Candide and his Poem on the Lisbon Disaster, questioning philosophical optimism. The Marquis of Pombal led the rebuilding, with the rational, earthquake-resistant Baixa, and the scientific study of earthquakes was largely born here. See the Baixa.

From the 19th century to Salazar

In 1807, faced with Napoleon's invasion, the court fled to Brazil, which remained the empire's centre until 1821. The 19th century saw civil wars between liberals and absolutists, but also modernisation: the Avenida da Liberdade, trams, the literary cafés of Chiado. In 1908 King Carlos I was assassinated, and in 1910 the Republic was proclaimed. Unstable, it fell in a 1926 coup, leading to the Estado Novo of António de Oliveira Salazar, a conservative dictatorship lasting almost half a century. During the Second World War neutral Lisbon was the escape route to America for thousands of refugees.

The Carnation Revolution

On 25 April 1974 a group of army captains, weary of the colonial wars in Africa, overthrew the regime almost without firing a shot. People poured into the streets and put red carnations in the soldiers' rifle barrels: the signal had been the song Grândola, Vila Morena broadcast on the radio. Decolonisation followed, the return of hundreds of thousands of retornados from Africa, and democracy. The Aljube Museum and Largo do Carmo recall those days.

European Lisbon

In 1986 Portugal joined the European Community and Lisbon was transformed: the 1988 Chiado fire became an opportunity for renewal, in 1994 it was European Capital of Culture, and in 1998 it hosted Expo. After the 2011-2014 debt crisis, the city became one of Europe's favourite destinations and a magnet for digital nomads and foreign investors, with the rent and gentrification problems that followed. See living in Lisbon.