Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
History
This small nation at the edge of Europe has seen a long line of conquerors and foreign
princes over the last 3000 years. Celts, Romans, Visigoths, Moors and Christian cru-
saders all made contributions to Portugal's early identity. In the 15th century, sea
captains and intrepid explorers helped transform Portugal into the seat of a vast glob-
al empire. The centuries that followed saw devastation (the Lisbon earthquake of
1755) and great changes (industrialisation, dictatorship, decolonisation) before Por-
tugal became a stable democracy in the 1980s.
