Portugal is one of Europe's oldest states: its mainland borders have barely changed since the mid-thirteenth century. Here we trace its history in brief; the main dates are gathered in the historical timeline and recent decades in modern Portuguese history.
Lusitanians, Romans and Visigoths
In ancient times the land was inhabited by Celtic and Iberian peoples, including the Lusitanians, who traded with Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Greeks. In the second century BC the Romans began conquering the region, meeting long resistance from the Lusitanians led by Viriathus, still regarded as a national hero. Under Augustus, at the end of the first century BC, the province of Lusitania was created, with its capital at Emerita Augusta (today's Mérida, in Spain).
In the fifth century AD, like the rest of the Roman Empire, the region suffered invasions by Germanic peoples: the Suebi founded a kingdom in the north-west, with its capital at Braga, later absorbed by the Visigoths, who settled permanently in the peninsula.
Al-Andalus and the Reconquista
In 711 Muslim armies landed in the Iberian Peninsula and within a few years conquered almost all of it. For centuries the south of today's Portugal was part of al-Andalus, which left a deep mark on language, farming and architecture. The Christian reconquest started from the north: in 868 Vímara Peres, a vassal of the King of Asturias, retook Porto (Portus Cale), which gave its name to the County of Portucale; in 1064 Ferdinand I, King of Castile and León, freed Coimbra and the land between the Douro and the Mondego. Alfonso VI entrusted the County of Portugal to his son-in-law, Henry of Burgundy.
The birth of the kingdom
Henry's son, Afonso Henriques, defeated his mother Teresa at the battle of São Mamede (1128) and took the title of king after his victory over the Moors at Ourique (1139). Independence was recognised by Castile in the Treaty of Zamora (1143) and by the Pope in 1179. Afonso took Santarém and Lisbon (1147), with the help of crusaders bound for the Holy Land.
In 1211 the first Cortes, the kingdom's assembly, met in Coimbra. Afonso III (1248-1279) completed the Portuguese Reconquista by taking the Algarve in 1249, and King Dinis (1279-1325) founded the University of Lisbon in 1290, later moved to Coimbra, and in the Treaty of Alcañices of 1297 fixed borders with Castile almost identical to today's.
With Ferdinand I (1367-1383) the Burgundian dynasty died out. After a serious succession crisis, John I (1385-1433) founded the Avis dynasty and defeated the Castilians at the battle of Aljubarrota (1385). In 1386 the Treaty of Windsor sealed the alliance with England, the oldest still in force in the world.
The discoveries and the empire
In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries Portugal led European maritime expansion. The voyages of discovery, promoted by Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), led to the settlement of Madeira and the Azores and the exploration of the African coast. In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope; in 1494 the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the lands to be discovered outside Europe between Spain and Portugal. In 1498 Vasco da Gama reached India by sea and in 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral arrived in Brazil. Between 1505 and 1515 the Portuguese empire in the East took shape, with bases at Goa, Malacca and Hormuz controlling the spice trade. See our page on the Portuguese empire.
Under Manuel I (1495-1521) and John III (1521-1557) spice wealth paid for monuments such as the Jerónimos monastery and culture flourished. The young King Sebastian (1557-1578) died without heirs in the disastrous battle of Alcácer Quibir, in Morocco, giving rise to the myth of the "hidden king" who would one day return.
Union with Spain and the Restoration
In 1580, with the Avis dynasty extinct, Philip II of Spain became King of Portugal as Philip I: for sixty years the two kingdoms shared a monarch while formally remaining separate. On 1 December 1640 the Portuguese rebelled and proclaimed the Duke of Braganza king as John IV (1640-1656), first of the Braganza dynasty. After a long war, Spain recognised independence in the Treaty of Lisbon of 1668.
Brazilian gold, Pombal and Napoleon
In the seventeenth century Portugal lost most of its Asian positions to the Dutch and focused on Brazil. In 1703 the Methuen Treaty tied the country economically to England, trading Portuguese wine for English cloth. Under John V (1706-1750) Brazilian gold paid for a lavish court and grand works such as the palace of Mafra, but failed to stimulate the country's economic development. Under Joseph I (1750-1777) the Marquis of Pombal effectively ruled, imposing vigorous enlightened despotism, expelling the Jesuits and rebuilding Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake. Queen Maria I (1777-1816) left power to her son, the future John VI, from 1792. In 1801 Portugal fought the brief War of the Oranges against Spain.
In 1807 the country was invaded by Junot's French troops and the royal family moved to Brazil, which became the centre of the monarchy. The following year Arthur Wellesley's British army, led by the future Duke of Wellington, landed in Portugal; in 1811 the French were finally driven out, but the country remained under a military regime controlled by the British.
Liberals and absolutists
In 1820 a liberal revolution that began in Porto demanded the king's return, and in 1821 John VI (1816-1826) came back to Lisbon and accepted the liberal constitution of 1822. His eldest son Pedro proclaimed himself Emperor of Brazil, whose independence was recognised in 1825. On John VI's death Pedro became King of Portugal as Pedro IV, but abdicated in favour of his daughter Maria II, entrusting the regency to his brother Miguel. Miguel proclaimed himself king in 1828 and tried to restore absolutism, sparking the civil war (1832-1834): Pedro returned to Europe, landed near Porto and restored Maria II to the throne (queen until 1853).
After years of tension, from 1851 the Regeneração period brought stability, railways and genuine parliamentary government under kings Pedro V (1853-1861), Luís I (1861-1889) and Carlos I (1889-1908). The country tried to build a new colonial empire in Africa, with Angola and Mozambique, but in 1890 the British Ultimatum forced it to abandon its plan to link the two territories, a deep national humiliation.
The Republic and the Estado Novo
In 1907-1908 Prime Minister João Franco governed with dictatorial powers; on 1 February 1908 King Carlos I was assassinated in Lisbon together with his eldest son. The new king, Manuel II, restored constitutional rule, but on 5 October 1910 a revolution proclaimed the Republic. The provisional government separated Church and State and recognised the right to strike. The First Republic was marked by extreme instability, with dozens of governments, and joining the First World War on the Allied side, from 1916, brought no real benefits.
General Gomes da Costa's coup of 28 May 1926 overthrew the regime. In 1928 President Carmona appointed António de Oliveira Salazar, a Coimbra professor, as finance minister, and he achieved a spectacular recovery of the public accounts. Prime Minister from 1932, Salazar established the Estado Novo with the 1933 constitution, an authoritarian, corporatist, nationalist and Catholic regime with political police and censorship. Portugal stayed neutral in the Second World War and joined NATO in 1949, but remained isolated and poor. From 1961 it fought a long colonial war in Angola, Guinea and Mozambique. In 1968 the ailing Salazar was replaced by Marcelo Caetano, who continued the regime.
The Carnation Revolution and democracy
On 25 April 1974 the Armed Forces Movement overthrew the regime in an almost bloodless coup, the Carnation Revolution; General Spínola headed the National Salvation Junta. Two turbulent years followed, with nationalisations and land reform, until things stabilised in November 1975. The colonies won independence in 1974-1975.
Democracy was born with the 1976 Constitution: from 1976 to 1986 General Ramalho Eanes was President, while governments came and went under Mário Soares (Socialist, 1976-1978), Francisco Sá Carneiro (centre-right, 1980), Francisco Pinto Balsemão (1981-1983), Soares again (1983-1985) and Aníbal Cavaco Silva (Social Democrat, 1985-1995), who won absolute majorities in 1987 and 1991. In 1986 Soares was elected President and Portugal joined the European Economic Community.
In 1995 the Socialists won and their leader, António Guterres, later UN Secretary-General, became Prime Minister; the following year the Socialist Jorge Sampaio was elected President. In 1998 Lisbon hosted Expo 98 and the country was admitted among the first members of the euro, introduced on 1 January 1999. That same year Portugal, still the administering power of East Timor, occupied by Indonesia since 1975, signed an agreement in May that led to the August referendum in which the Timorese chose independence, achieved in 2002; in December Macau was returned to China. In December 2001 Guterres resigned after defeat in local elections, and in March 2002 the PSD, which despite its name is a centre-right party, won under José Manuel Durão Barroso. The following decades, from the debt crisis to today's governments, are covered on the page on modern Portuguese history.