Revised and updated in this second edition, Brazil: Five Centuries of Change vividly traces the development of Brazil over the last 500 years. Author Thomas E. Skidmore, a preeminent authority on Brazil, provides a lively political and economic narrative while also including relevant details on society and culture. Skidmore’s major revision of the colonial chapters […]
In a time of terror for Europe’s monarchs—imprisoned, exiled, executed—Napoleon’s army marched toward Lisbon. Cornered, Prince Regent João had to make the most fraught decision of his life. Protected by the British Navy, he fled to Brazil with his entire family, including his deranged mother, most of the nobility, and the entire state apparatus. Until […]
In 1807, the Portuguese prince regent Dom Joao made an extraordinary decision. Although horrified by the idea of sea travel, Napoleon’s troops were closing in on Lisbon so he opted to transplant his entire court and government to Portugal’s largest colony, Brazil. 10,000 aristocrats, ministers, priests and servants clambered aboard the rickety fleet. After a […]
The Navy Arsenal were the old maintenance facility and ship repair the Portuguese Navy located in Lisbon. They were deployed to the west of the Palace Square, substantially in one site of the ancient Ribeira das Naus and the Tejo Opera House, destroyed by the earthquake of 1755. Until the establishment of the Republic were […]
The Portuguese East India Company, Companhia do commércio da Índia or Companhia da Índia Oriental was a short-lived ill-fated attempt by Philip III of Portugal, King of the Iberian Union, to create a national chartered company to look after interests in Portuguese India in the face on encroachment by the Dutch andEnglish following the union of the […]
The Armada comprised squadrons of different types of vessel. The principal naval ships were the great galleons of Portugal, sailing vessels with guns and naval crews. The Armada set sail from Lisbon on 28th May 1588 (British date or Old Style), picking its way out of the Tagus River and working north up the […]
São Martinho (meaning Saint Martin), built as a Portuguese Navy galleon, became the flagship of Duke of Medina Sedonia, commander-in-chief of the Spanish Armada. São Martinho in combat with English ships, in a painting by Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom When the Kingdom of Portugal came under the rule of King Philip II of Spain (Philip I […]
The Capture of Malacca in 1511 occurred when the Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque subdued the city of Malacca in 1511. The port city of Malacca controlled the narrow strategic strait of Malacca, through which all seagoing trade between China and India was concentrated. The capture of Malacca was the result of a plan by the […]
More than 400 years ago, who had the Lisbon panoramic view of the Tagus would have contemplated, out of Bethlehem, that majestic movement that anticipates the glory, the last galleon of the Great Armada y Felícisima. Under the command of the Duke Medina-Sidonia, second choice, 151 boats, manned by 8000 sailors and shipping 18,000 soldiers they […]