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the+illiterate

  • 1 illiterate

    A n
    1 ( person) analphabète mf ;
    2 the illiterate (+ v pl) les analphabètes.
    B adj
    1 [person] analphabète ;
    2 ( uncultured) [person] illettré ; [letter, writing] d'illettré.

    Big English-French dictionary > illiterate

  • 2 illiterate

    [ɪ'lɪtərət] 1.
    aggettivo analfabeta, illetterato; (uncultured) ignorante, illetterato
    2.
    nome analfabeta m. e f.

    the illiterate+ verbo pl. gli analfabeti

    * * *
    [i'litərət]
    1) (unable to read and write.) analfabeta
    2) (having little or no education.) incolto
    * * *
    illiterate /ɪˈlɪtərət/
    A a.
    1 analfabeta; illetterato; che non sa né leggere né scrivere
    2 ignorante ( in un campo specifico); analfabeta: musically illiterate, che non conosce la musica; ignorante in fatto di musica; He is politically illiterate, è un analfabeta in politica
    3 incolto; illetterato; ignorante
    4 da persona incolta; scorretto: illiterate writings, scritti scorretti
    B n.
    2 persona incolta; individuo ignorante
    illiterateness
    illiteracy, def. 1 e 2.
    * * *
    [ɪ'lɪtərət] 1.
    aggettivo analfabeta, illetterato; (uncultured) ignorante, illetterato
    2.
    nome analfabeta m. e f.

    the illiterate+ verbo pl. gli analfabeti

    English-Italian dictionary > illiterate

  • 3 illiterate

    i'litərət
    1) (unable to read and write.) som ikke kan lese og skrive, analfabet
    2) (having little or no education.) uvitende, uutdannet
    analfabet
    I
    subst. \/ɪˈlɪt(ə)rət\/
    1) analfabet
    2) uutdannet person
    II
    adj. \/ɪˈlɪt(ə)rət\/
    1) ikke lese- og skrivekyndig
    landets befolkning er stort sett analfabeter\/ ikke lese- og skrivekyndig
    2) uutdannet, ulærd
    3) full av språkfeil

    English-Norwegian dictionary > illiterate

  • 4 Zé Povinho

       The Portuguese "everyman" or "common person," Zé Povinho (literally in Portuguese, "Joe Little People," Zé being a common abbreviation for "José" or "Joe") originated as a cartoon character created in 1875 by the artist Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro. Zé Povinho is a variation of "Zé-dos-anzois" ("Joe of the Fish-Hooks"), representing the ordinary Portuguese fisherman. The character was representative of the rural masses, the common people, and was intended to be in sharp contrast to the slick, sophisticated, spoiled urban Portuguese of Lisbon.
       Pinheiro's cartoon character's traits included peasant simplicity, candor, long-suffering patience, and credulity. As Pinheiro drew Zé Povinho, he was a short, bearded, swarthy figure, his heavy features wreathed in smiles; he was dressed in a white open shirt, dark trousers, and a hat. While the name, idea, and appearance of this cartoon character were meant to depict the majority of Portuguese of Pinheiro's day—largely rural, peasant, illiterate masses — more than a century later, Zé Povinho still appears regularly in the print media and books, both in Portugal and in Portuguese-language newspapers among overseas Portuguese communities. Joe Little People's appearance changes little, and in some Portuguese-language periodicals in the United States and Canada, his critical function in political discussions remains, namely to indicate the weaknesses of the government of the day.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Zé Povinho

  • 5 неграмотность

    жен.
    1) (безграмотность) illiteracy
    2) (неосведомленность) ignorance
    неграмотн|ость - ж.
    1. illiteracy;
    перен. (отсутствие знаний в какой-л. области) ignorance;
    ликвидация ~ости abolition of illiteracy;
    техническая ~ technical ignorance;

    2. (наличие грамматических ошибок) grammatical ignorance;
    перен. (несоответствие основным требованиям) incompetence;
    ~ сочинения the grammatical ignorance displayed in the essay;
    ~ чертежа the technical incompetence, displayed in the drawing;
    ~ый
    3. прил. illiterate;
    перен. (малоопытный, неумелый) ignorant (of) ;

    4. прил. (содержащий ошибки) ungrammatical;
    перен. (выполненный без знания дела) inaccurate, incompetent;
    ~ая речь ungrammatical/uneducated speech;

    5. в знач. сущ. м. an illiterate.

    Большой англо-русский и русско-английский словарь > неграмотность

  • 6 come

    1. I
    1) coming! иду!; come and have supper with us (and hear her, etc.) приходите к нам поужинать и т. д.', people come and go люди приходят и уходят; let' em all come! пусть они все приезжают!; has anybody come? кто-нибудь приходил?; the саг has come машина пришла
    2) I waited for the books to come я ждал, когда придут /прибудут, доставят/ книги; dinner came принесли обед
    3) help (money, your order, etc.) came пришла /подоспела/ помощь и т. д.
    4) day (the holiday, Christmas, his turn, etc.) came день и т. д. наступил; old age came подошла старость; when the time came когда пришло /подошло/ время; crisis came наступил кризис; after many years had come and gone no прошествии многих лет; in days (years, etc.) to come в будущем, в грядущие годы; in the life to come в дальнейшей жизни; he will stay here for some.time (for some months, etc.) to come он пробудет здесь еще некоторое время и т. д.', his troubles are yet to come неприятности у него еще впереди, ему еще предстоят неприятности; be ready for whatever comes будьте готовы ко всему, что может случиться
    5) his teeth begin to come у него начинают появляться /прорезаться/ зубы; his colour came and went он то краснел, то бледнел; the pain comes and goes боль то появляется, то исчезает; the light comes and goes свет то загорается, то гаснет
    2. II
    1) come in some manner come reluctantly (briskly, swiftly, constantly, silently, hesitatingly, jauntily, drunkenly, etc.) неохотно и т. д. приходить /подходить/; come он foot прийти пешком; they came one by one (one after another) они шли (приходили) по одному и т. д.; come at some time comeevery day (tomorrow, soon, etc.) приходить каждый день и т. д., you go on, I'm just coming вы идите, я сейчас приду; he has not come yet? он еще не пришел /не приехал/?; who is coming today? кто сегодня приезжает?; come and see me tomorrow приходите ко мне завтра [повидаться]; come somewhere come home (here, there, etc.) приходить домой и т. д.; are you coming my way? вам со мной по пути?; come in! войдите!; come out выходить; come up подняться [наверх]; I'm still in bed, can you come up? я еще [лежу] в постели, вы не могли бы подняться ко мне?; come down сойти /спуститься/ [вниз]; come back прийти назад /обратно/, вернуться; this fashion has come back эта мода и т. д. вернулась [снова]; come away отходить [прочь]; you're too near the stove, come away ты стоишь слишком близко к плите, отойди подальше: come nearer подойдите поближе; come forward выступать вперед; several members of our group came forward a) несколько членов нашей группы выступили /вышли/ вперед; б) из нашей группы вызвалось несколько добровольцев; come by /past/ проходить мимо; did you see anyone come by? тут никто не проходил?
    2) come at some time post comes every day (twice a day, etc.) почта приходит /почту приносят, привозят, доставляют/ каждый день и т. д.; dinner came at last обед наконец принесли
    3) come at some time inspiration ( love, sleep, etc.) never came вдохновение и т. д. так и не пришло; help came at last (soon enough, etc.) наконец и т. д. подоспела помощь; summer came early (late) лето наступило /пришло/ рано (поздно), лето было раннее (позднее); this holiday comes once a year этот праздник бывает один раз в году
    4) come at lame time buds come every spring почки появляются каждую весну; this flower comes once a year этот цветок цветет раз в год
    5) come in some manner the job is coning nicely (badly, etc..) работа идет хорошо и т.д., the garden is coming well в моем саду все хорошо растет
    3. III
    1) come some distance come a long way (three miles, etc.) пройти большой /длинный/ путь и т. д.
    2) come smb. coll. come the grand dame (the swell, the stern parent, the great man, etc.) напускать на себя вид светской дамы и т. д.
    4. X
    1) come to be in some state he came [back] refreshed in mind and body (changed, etc.) он вернулся отдохнувшим душой и телом и т. д.
    2) 0 come undone /untied/ развязаться; come unstitched / unsown/ распороться, разойтись по шву; come unstuck отклеиться
    5. XIII
    1) come to do smth. come to borrow a dictionary (to paint the house, to work, to clean the windows, to get this book. to see him, etc.) прийти [, чтобы] взять на время словарь и т. д.
    2) come to do smth. I came to believe that (to use it, to understand it, to see that I was mistaken, etc.) я стал /начал/ верить этому и т. д.; he came to see the problem in a new light он теперь видит эту проблему в новом свете; now I came to know him better... теперь, когда я узнал его лучше...; when I come to die... когда настанет мой смертный час...; how did you come to hear of it (to know this, to learn where she is living, to do that, to think of this, etc.)? как случилось, что вы узнали об этом и т. д.?; now that I come to think of it he is right подумав об этом еще раз /обдумав этот вопрос/, я понял, что он прав; come to be done the streets have come to be used as motor parks
    /пропущено/
    come to be smb. he came to be a famous man (a good violinist, etc.) он стал знаменитым и т. д.; come to be in some state how does the door come to be open? почему открыта дверь?
    6. XIV
    come doing smth. he came running он прибежал /примчался/; she came laughing она пришла или вошла смеясь /со смехом/; the sunshine came streaming in through the windows солнечные лучи, проникавшие через окно, заливали комнату; the rain came pouring down дождь лил как из ведра; the train came puffing into the station поезд пыхтя подошел к станции
    7. XV
    ||1)
    come first (third, etc.) приходить первым и т. д.
    2)
    come to be in some state come loose ослабнуть, расшататься; come apart /asunder/ развалиться на части, распасться; things will come right coll. все будет в порядке; come true сбываться; come alive оживать; good clothes come high /expensive/ хорошие вещи стоят дорого; it comes cheaper if you buy things in bulk если покупать оптом, выходит дешевле; rising early comes easy with practice если привык рано вставать, то это совсем нетрудно; it comes natural to some people у некоторых людей это получается без всякого труда; come clean sl. "расколоться", все рассказать
    8. XVI
    1) come into (out of, to, from, along, across, etc.) some place come Into a room войти в комнату: come into the garden выйти в сад; the train came into the station поезд подошел к станции; come out of a room (out of a place, out of a house, etc.) выходить из комнаты и т. д., come to a river (to a bridge, to a village, to a station, etc.) подходить /приходить/ к реке и т. д.', come from another country (from London. etc.) приехать из другой страны и т. д.', come down from a tree спуститься с дерева; come down to this level (to the 5 ft level, etc.) опуститься до этого уровня и т. д.; come by the house (round the church, across the Alps, etc.) пройти /проехать/ мимо дома и т. д.; come through his clothes (through the wood, through the wall, etc.) проникать сквозь /через/ одежду и т. д.; come with smb. I'm coming with you я иду с вами; come with me a little way пройдемте немного со мной; will you come with me to India? вы поедете со мной в Индию?; come after smb. come after his sister идти /приходить/ вслед за его сестрой; come for /after/ smth., smb. come for one's book (for their ladder, for his present, for you, etc.) приходить за своей книгой и т. д.; they came after my passport они пришли за моим паспортом; come in smth. come in groups (in swarms. in twoes, etc.) приходить (идти) группами и т. д.: come by smth. come by саг (by train, by air, by boat, etc.) приезжать машиной /на машине/ и т. д.; come (at some time come on the tenth (before midnight, after lunch, in the evening, etc.) приходить /приезжать/ десятого и т.д.; she won't come till late она не придет допоздна; come off smth. come oft a bicycle (off a horse, off a ship, etc.) сойти с велосипеда и т. д.
    2) come on smth. there came a knock on the door послышался стук в дверь, в дверь постучали
    3) come for smth. come for advice (for an explanation, for an answer, etc.) приходить /обращаться/ за советом и т. д.; come to smb. why didn't you come to me? почему вы не пришли /не обратились/ ко мне?; you came to the wrong person вы пришли / обратились/ не к тому человеку; come before smb., smth. come before a judge (before a conciliation court, before the United Nations Assembly, etc.) представать перед судьей и т. д.; the matter came before the international court (the League of Nations, etc.) это дело разбиралось в международном арбитраже и т. д.
    4) come to smb. love (inspiration, etc.) came to him к нему пришла /его посетила/ любовь и т. д.; everything comes to him who waits все приходит к тому, кто умеет ждать; come upon smb. a disaster (a misfortune, a calamity, bad luck, etc.) came upon them у них произошло /их постигло/ несчастье и т. д., fear came upon me меня охватил страх; come over smb. what has come over him? что на него нашло?; а fit of dizziness came over me мне стало нехорошо, у меня закружилась голова; а change has come over him он изменился; come into (across) smth. an idea (a thought, a plan, etc.) came into my head /into my mind, across my mind/ мне в голову пришла идея и т. д.; come upon (to) smb. it came upon me that... я вдруг понял /подумал/, что...; the answer came to him вдруг он понял, как надо ответить
    5) come after (before, on, etc.) smth., smb. spring comes after winter (May comes after April, New Year comes after Christmas, etc.) после зимы приходит /наступает/ весна и т.д.; historians (painters, etc.) that came after him историки и т. д., жившие после него; generations (civilizations, etc.) that came before him предшествующие поколения и т. д.; come in (on) smth. that poem comes on the next page это стихотворение дано на следующей странице; her aria comes in the 3d act ее ария будет в третьем акте; snow comes in winter снег выпадает зимой; new leaves came in spring весной появились свежие листочки; come into (to, in) smth. a look of perplexity came into his face выражение недоумения появилось у него на лице; а smile came to his lips он улыбнулся; tears came in her eyes на.ее глаза навернулись слезы; come to the surface всплывать, подниматься на поверхность; come into sight появиться в поле зрения; come into the world появиться на свет; come between smb. he (his money, her sister, etc.) came between them он и т. д. встал между ними; а misunderstanding came between them между ними возникло недоразумение; enmity came between them они стали врагами
    6) come to smth. come to this question (to the next item on the agenda, to the section on health, etc.) перейти к этому вопросу и т.д., come near smth. come near perfection приближаться к совершенству; I cannot come near that painter я не могу сравниться с этим художником, мне до этого художника очень далеко
    7) come to smth. come to one's knees
    (to her ankles, to the ground, to her waist, etc.) доходить до колен и т. д., the forest comes right to the lake лес подходит к самому озеру
    8) semiaux come into smth. come into blossom /into flower/ зацвести; come into leaf одеться листвой; trees came into bud на деревьях набухли почки
    9) come to smth. come to an understanding (to a decision, to an agreement, to terms with him, etc.) достигнуть понимания и т. д.; come to an end закончиться; come to the end of one's money /of one's resources/ исчерпать свои ресурсы; our talks came to a standstill наши переговоры зашли в тупик; the boys came to blows у мальчишек дело дошло до драки
    10) semiaux come to smth. come to L 6 (to a nice lot of money, to L 1000 a year, etc.) равняться шести фунтам и т. д.; исчисляться шестью фунтами и т.д; how much does it come to? a) сколько это будет стоить?; б) чему это равняется?; duty comes to more than this thing is worth пошлина превышает стоимость самой вещи; what he knows does not come to much его знания /сведения/ немногого стоят; come to the same thing сводиться к тому же самому; all his efforts (his plans, etc.) came to naught /to nothing/ из его стараний и т. д. ничего не вышло; if it comes to that если дело дойдет до этого; what are things coming to? к чему все идет?
    11) come to (into) smth. this law will soon come into force /into effect/ этот закон вскоре вступит в силу; come to the throne занять престол; come (in)to power прийти к власти; come into fashion (into use) входить в моду (в употребление); these two tendencies came into conflict эти две тенденции вступили в противоречие; he came to life он пришел в себя /ожил/ the conflict came to a boil конфликт назрел; when all the facts came to light когда стали известны /выяснились/ все факты; it came to my notice /to my ears, to my knowledge мне стало известно об этом; they will come to no harm с ними ничего не случится; he will come to a bad end /to no good, to grief/ он плохо кончит; come of age достичь совершеннолетия
    12) come of /from, out of/ smth. this comes of carelessness (of your indiscretion, of disobedience, etc.) вот что получается в результате небрежности и т. д., вот к чему приводит небрежность и т. д.', what came of it? что из этого вышло?; nothing came of the matter ничего из этого дела не получилось; nothing came out of all this talk эти разговоры ничего не дали; success often comes from hard work успех нередко достигается упорным трудом
    13) come through smth. come. through trials (through sufferings, through a serious illness, etc.) пройти через испытания и т.д., come through two world wars пережить две мировые войны
    14) come upon /across/ smb., smth. come upon /across/ one's friend (these people, etc.) случайно встретить друга и т. д, I have just come upon him (across the postman, upon your brother, etc.) я только что [случайно] столкнулся с ним и т. д.; come upon the right answer (upon a secret, upon a jar full of ancient coins, etc.) натолкнуться на /случайно найти/ правильный ответ и т. д, I came across this in a curio shop (across this magazine, across an envelope with her note in it, etc.) мне случайно попалась эта вещь в антикварном магазине и т. д.; wandering through these valleys you will come across rare minerals, plants and butterflies бродя по этим долинам, можно отыскать /найти/ редкие минералы, растения и бабочек
    15) come at smb. he came at these people (at me, at the intruder, at the boys with a heavy stick, etc.) он бросился на этих людей и т. д; just let me come at you! дай мне только добраться до тебя!
    16) come into smth. come into a property (into an inheritance, into a fortune, into an estate, into money, into a nice income, into business, etc.) получить /приобрести/ собственность и т. д.', come into favour войти в милость, заслужить благосклонность
    17) come under smth. come under another heading (under the penalty of the law, etc.) подходить под другую рубрику и т. д, what regulations does this come under? в каких правилах это предусмотрено?; come within smth. come within my duties (within my lot, etc.) входить в мои обязанности и т. д.', come before smth. counts (barons) come before baronets титул графа и барона выше титула баронета
    18) come in smth. come in several sizes (in different colours, etc.) быть разных размеров и т. д.; these things come in tubes (in boxes, etc.) такие товары продаются в тюбиках и т. д.
    19) come from /of/ smb., smth. he comes from a good family (of noble parents, of peasant stock, etc.) он [происходит] из хорошей семьи и т. д., he comes from my native place (from Kent, from Florida, etc.) он [родом] из наших мест и т. д., where do you come from? откуда вы родом?; this word comes from Latin это слово латинского происхождения /пришло из латыни/; this quotation comes from Pushkin это цитата из Пушкина; the money came to him from his father (from his wife, from a rich uncle, etc.) он получил деньги от отца и т. д.; wine comes from grapes вино делают из винограда; coffee comes from Brazil кофе импортируют из Бразилии; much of the Iamb eaten in England comes from New Zealand большая часть баранины, потребляемой в Англии, ввозится из Новой Зеландии
    20) come from smth., smb. a sob came from her throat у нее вырвалось рыдание; no word came from him он никак не давал о себе знать; everything that comes from him is evil от него исходит только дурное
    9. XVII
    1) come to doing smth. when (if) it comes to making a decision (to buying a house, etc.) если придется решать и т. д.; he came near to leaving her (to dying, to killing himself, etc.) он чуть было не бросил ее и т. д.
    2) come of doing smth. this is what comes of losing hope (of grumbling, of trying to help people, of judging by the eye, etc.) вот что получается, когда человек теряет надежду и т. д; what came of all your careful planning? что вышло из всех ваших точных расчетов?; come of being in some state it comes of being careless (of being in a hurry, of being tired, etc.) это происходит из-за небрежности и т. д.', come of being of some quality this comes of being so shy (of being miserly, of being illiterate, etc.) это является результатом робости и т. д.
    10. XXI1
    come smth. over smb. coll. he likes to come the heavy father over me он любит проявлять свой отцовскую власть надо мной
    11. XXV
    1) come when... time will come when... настанет время, когда... || come what may будь, что будет
    2) come that... how does it come that you quarreled ( that there are only two, that you didn't get here in time, etc.)? как случилось, что вы поссорились и т. д.?
    12. XXVII2
    come into (to) smth. that... (why..., etc.) it came into my head that мне пришло в голову, что...; it came to my hearing that... до меня дошло, что...; if it comes to that why don't you tell him yourself? раз такие дело или если на то пошло, почему ты сам ему не скажешь?

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  • 7 Historical Portugal

       Before Romans described western Iberia or Hispania as "Lusitania," ancient Iberians inhabited the land. Phoenician and Greek trading settlements grew up in the Tagus estuary area and nearby coasts. Beginning around 202 BCE, Romans invaded what is today southern Portugal. With Rome's defeat of Carthage, Romans proceeded to conquer and rule the western region north of the Tagus, which they named Roman "Lusitania." In the fourth century CE, as Rome's rule weakened, the area experienced yet another invasion—Germanic tribes, principally the Suevi, who eventually were Christianized. During the sixth century CE, the Suevi kingdom was superseded by yet another Germanic tribe—the Christian Visigoths.
       A major turning point in Portugal's history came in 711, as Muslim armies from North Africa, consisting of both Arab and Berber elements, invaded the Iberian Peninsula from across the Straits of Gibraltar. They entered what is now Portugal in 714, and proceeded to conquer most of the country except for the far north. For the next half a millennium, Islam and Muslim presence in Portugal left a significant mark upon the politics, government, language, and culture of the country.
       Islam, Reconquest, and Portugal Created, 714-1140
       The long frontier struggle between Muslim invaders and Christian communities in the north of the Iberian peninsula was called the Reconquista (Reconquest). It was during this struggle that the first dynasty of Portuguese kings (Burgundian) emerged and the independent monarchy of Portugal was established. Christian forces moved south from what is now the extreme north of Portugal and gradually defeated Muslim forces, besieging and capturing towns under Muslim sway. In the ninth century, as Christian forces slowly made their way southward, Christian elements were dominant only in the area between Minho province and the Douro River; this region became known as "territorium Portu-calense."
       In the 11th century, the advance of the Reconquest quickened as local Christian armies were reinforced by crusading knights from what is now France and England. Christian forces took Montemor (1034), at the Mondego River; Lamego (1058); Viseu (1058); and Coimbra (1064). In 1095, the king of Castile and Léon granted the country of "Portu-cale," what became northern Portugal, to a Burgundian count who had emigrated from France. This was the foundation of Portugal. In 1139, a descendant of this count, Afonso Henriques, proclaimed himself "King of Portugal." He was Portugal's first monarch, the "Founder," and the first of the Burgundian dynasty, which ruled until 1385.
       The emergence of Portugal in the 12th century as a separate monarchy in Iberia occurred before the Christian Reconquest of the peninsula. In the 1140s, the pope in Rome recognized Afonso Henriques as king of Portugal. In 1147, after a long, bloody siege, Muslim-occupied Lisbon fell to Afonso Henriques's army. Lisbon was the greatest prize of the 500-year war. Assisting this effort were English crusaders on their way to the Holy Land; the first bishop of Lisbon was an Englishman. When the Portuguese captured Faro and Silves in the Algarve province in 1248-50, the Reconquest of the extreme western portion of the Iberian peninsula was complete—significantly, more than two centuries before the Spanish crown completed the Reconquest of the eastern portion by capturing Granada in 1492.
       Consolidation and Independence of Burgundian Portugal, 1140-1385
       Two main themes of Portugal's early existence as a monarchy are the consolidation of control over the realm and the defeat of a Castil-ian threat from the east to its independence. At the end of this period came the birth of a new royal dynasty (Aviz), which prepared to carry the Christian Reconquest beyond continental Portugal across the straits of Gibraltar to North Africa. There was a variety of motives behind these developments. Portugal's independent existence was imperiled by threats from neighboring Iberian kingdoms to the north and east. Politics were dominated not only by efforts against the Muslims in
       Portugal (until 1250) and in nearby southern Spain (until 1492), but also by internecine warfare among the kingdoms of Castile, Léon, Aragon, and Portugal. A final comeback of Muslim forces was defeated at the battle of Salado (1340) by allied Castilian and Portuguese forces. In the emerging Kingdom of Portugal, the monarch gradually gained power over and neutralized the nobility and the Church.
       The historic and commonplace Portuguese saying "From Spain, neither a good wind nor a good marriage" was literally played out in diplomacy and war in the late 14th-century struggles for mastery in the peninsula. Larger, more populous Castile was pitted against smaller Portugal. Castile's Juan I intended to force a union between Castile and Portugal during this era of confusion and conflict. In late 1383, Portugal's King Fernando, the last king of the Burgundian dynasty, suddenly died prematurely at age 38, and the Master of Aviz, Portugal's most powerful nobleman, took up the cause of independence and resistance against Castile's invasion. The Master of Aviz, who became King João I of Portugal, was able to obtain foreign assistance. With the aid of English archers, Joao's armies defeated the Castilians in the crucial battle of Aljubarrota, on 14 August 1385, a victory that assured the independence of the Portuguese monarchy from its Castilian nemesis for several centuries.
       Aviz Dynasty and Portugal's First Overseas Empire, 1385-1580
       The results of the victory at Aljubarrota, much celebrated in Portugal's art and monuments, and the rise of the Aviz dynasty also helped to establish a new merchant class in Lisbon and Oporto, Portugal's second city. This group supported King João I's program of carrying the Reconquest to North Africa, since it was interested in expanding Portugal's foreign commerce and tapping into Muslim trade routes and resources in Africa. With the Reconquest against the Muslims completed in Portugal and the threat from Castile thwarted for the moment, the Aviz dynasty launched an era of overseas conquest, exploration, and trade. These efforts dominated Portugal's 15th and 16th centuries.
       The overseas empire and age of Discoveries began with Portugal's bold conquest in 1415 of the Moroccan city of Ceuta. One royal member of the 1415 expedition was young, 21-year-old Prince Henry, later known in history as "Prince Henry the Navigator." His part in the capture of Ceuta won Henry his knighthood and began Portugal's "Marvelous Century," during which the small kingdom was counted as a European and world power of consequence. Henry was the son of King João I and his English queen, Philippa of Lancaster, but he did not inherit the throne. Instead, he spent most of his life and his fortune, and that of the wealthy military Order of Christ, on various imperial ventures and on voyages of exploration down the African coast and into the Atlantic. While mythology has surrounded Henry's controversial role in the Discoveries, and this role has been exaggerated, there is no doubt that he played a vital part in the initiation of Portugal's first overseas empire and in encouraging exploration. He was naturally curious, had a sense of mission for Portugal, and was a strong leader. He also had wealth to expend; at least a third of the African voyages of the time were under his sponsorship. If Prince Henry himself knew little science, significant scientific advances in navigation were made in his day.
       What were Portugal's motives for this new imperial effort? The well-worn historical cliche of "God, Glory, and Gold" can only partly explain the motivation of a small kingdom with few natural resources and barely 1 million people, which was greatly outnumbered by the other powers it confronted. Among Portuguese objectives were the desire to exploit known North African trade routes and resources (gold, wheat, leather, weaponry, and other goods that were scarce in Iberia); the need to outflank the Muslim world in the Mediterranean by sailing around Africa, attacking Muslims en route; and the wish to ally with Christian kingdoms beyond Africa. This enterprise also involved a strategy of breaking the Venetian spice monopoly by trading directly with the East by means of discovering and exploiting a sea route around Africa to Asia. Besides the commercial motives, Portugal nurtured a strong crusading sense of Christian mission, and various classes in the kingdom saw an opportunity for fame and gain.
       By the time of Prince Henry's death in 1460, Portugal had gained control of the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeiras, begun to colonize the Cape Verde Islands, failed to conquer the Canary Islands from Castile, captured various cities on Morocco's coast, and explored as far as Senegal, West Africa, down the African coast. By 1488, Bar-tolomeu Dias had rounded the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and thereby discovered the way to the Indian Ocean.
       Portugal's largely coastal African empire and later its fragile Asian empire brought unexpected wealth but were purchased at a high price. Costs included wars of conquest and defense against rival powers, manning the far-flung navel and trade fleets and scattered castle-fortresses, and staffing its small but fierce armies, all of which entailed a loss of skills and population to maintain a scattered empire. Always short of capital, the monarchy became indebted to bankers. There were many defeats beginning in the 16th century at the hands of the larger imperial European monarchies (Spain, France, England, and Holland) and many attacks on Portugal and its strung-out empire. Typically, there was also the conflict that arose when a tenuously held world empire that rarely if ever paid its way demanded finance and manpower Portugal itself lacked.
       The first 80 years of the glorious imperial era, the golden age of Portugal's imperial power and world influence, was an African phase. During 1415-88, Portuguese navigators and explorers in small ships, some of them caravelas (caravels), explored the treacherous, disease-ridden coasts of Africa from Morocco to South Africa beyond the Cape of Good Hope. By the 1470s, the Portuguese had reached the Gulf of Guinea and, in the early 1480s, what is now Angola. Bartolomeu Dias's extraordinary voyage of 1487-88 to South Africa's coast and the edge of the Indian Ocean convinced Portugal that the best route to Asia's spices and Christians lay south, around the tip of southern Africa. Between 1488 and 1495, there was a hiatus caused in part by domestic conflict in Portugal, discussion of resources available for further conquests beyond Africa in Asia, and serious questions as to Portugal's capacity to reach beyond Africa. In 1495, King Manuel and his council decided to strike for Asia, whatever the consequences. In 1497-99, Vasco da Gama, under royal orders, made the epic two-year voyage that discovered the sea route to western India (Asia), outflanked Islam and Venice, and began Portugal's Asian empire. Within 50 years, Portugal had discovered and begun the exploitation of its largest colony, Brazil, and set up forts and trading posts from the Middle East (Aden and Ormuz), India (Calicut, Goa, etc.), Malacca, and Indonesia to Macau in China.
       By the 1550s, parts of its largely coastal, maritime trading post empire from Morocco to the Moluccas were under siege from various hostile forces, including Muslims, Christians, and Hindi. Although Moroccan forces expelled the Portuguese from the major coastal cities by 1550, the rival European monarchies of Castile (Spain), England, France, and later Holland began to seize portions of her undermanned, outgunned maritime empire.
       In 1580, Phillip II of Spain, whose mother was a Portuguese princess and who had a strong claim to the Portuguese throne, invaded Portugal, claimed the throne, and assumed control over the realm and, by extension, its African, Asian, and American empires. Phillip II filled the power vacuum that appeared in Portugal following the loss of most of Portugal's army and its young, headstrong King Sebastião in a disastrous war in Morocco. Sebastiao's death in battle (1578) and the lack of a natural heir to succeed him, as well as the weak leadership of the cardinal who briefly assumed control in Lisbon, led to a crisis that Spain's strong monarch exploited. As a result, Portugal lost its independence to Spain for a period of 60 years.
       Portugal under Spanish Rule, 1580-1640
       Despite the disastrous nature of Portugal's experience under Spanish rule, "The Babylonian Captivity" gave birth to modern Portuguese nationalism, its second overseas empire, and its modern alliance system with England. Although Spain allowed Portugal's weakened empire some autonomy, Spanish rule in Portugal became increasingly burdensome and unacceptable. Spain's ambitious imperial efforts in Europe and overseas had an impact on the Portuguese as Spain made greater and greater demands on its smaller neighbor for manpower and money. Portugal's culture underwent a controversial Castilianization, while its empire became hostage to Spain's fortunes. New rival powers England, France, and Holland attacked and took parts of Spain's empire and at the same time attacked Portugal's empire, as well as the mother country.
       Portugal's empire bore the consequences of being attacked by Spain's bitter enemies in what was a form of world war. Portuguese losses were heavy. By 1640, Portugal had lost most of its Moroccan cities as well as Ceylon, the Moluccas, and sections of India. With this, Portugal's Asian empire was gravely weakened. Only Goa, Damão, Diu, Bombay, Timor, and Macau remained and, in Brazil, Dutch forces occupied the northeast.
       On 1 December 1640, long commemorated as a national holiday, Portuguese rebels led by the duke of Braganza overthrew Spanish domination and took advantage of Spanish weakness following a more serious rebellion in Catalonia. Portugal regained independence from Spain, but at a price: dependence on foreign assistance to maintain its independence in the form of the renewal of the alliance with England.
       Restoration and Second Empire, 1640-1822
       Foreign affairs and empire dominated the restoration era and aftermath, and Portugal again briefly enjoyed greater European power and prestige. The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance was renewed and strengthened in treaties of 1642, 1654, and 1661, and Portugal's independence from Spain was underwritten by English pledges and armed assistance. In a Luso-Spanish treaty of 1668, Spain recognized Portugal's independence. Portugal's alliance with England was a marriage of convenience and necessity between two monarchies with important religious, cultural, and social differences. In return for legal, diplomatic, and trade privileges, as well as the use during war and peace of Portugal's great Lisbon harbor and colonial ports for England's navy, England pledged to protect Portugal and its scattered empire from any attack. The previously cited 17th-century alliance treaties were renewed later in the Treaty of Windsor, signed in London in 1899. On at least 10 different occasions after 1640, and during the next two centuries, England was central in helping prevent or repel foreign invasions of its ally, Portugal.
       Portugal's second empire (1640-1822) was largely Brazil-oriented. Portuguese colonization, exploitation of wealth, and emigration focused on Portuguese America, and imperial revenues came chiefly from Brazil. Between 1670 and 1740, Portugal's royalty and nobility grew wealthier on funds derived from Brazilian gold, diamonds, sugar, tobacco, and other crops, an enterprise supported by the Atlantic slave trade and the supply of African slave labor from West Africa and Angola. Visitors today can see where much of that wealth was invested: Portugal's rich legacy of monumental architecture. Meanwhile, the African slave trade took a toll in Angola and West Africa.
       In continental Portugal, absolutist monarchy dominated politics and government, and there was a struggle for position and power between the monarchy and other institutions, such as the Church and nobility. King José I's chief minister, usually known in history as the marquis of Pombal (ruled 1750-77), sharply suppressed the nobility and the
       Church (including the Inquisition, now a weak institution) and expelled the Jesuits. Pombal also made an effort to reduce economic dependence on England, Portugal's oldest ally. But his successes did not last much beyond his disputed time in office.
       Beginning in the late 18th century, the European-wide impact of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon placed Portugal in a vulnerable position. With the monarchy ineffectively led by an insane queen (Maria I) and her indecisive regent son (João VI), Portugal again became the focus of foreign ambition and aggression. With England unable to provide decisive assistance in time, France—with Spain's consent—invaded Portugal in 1807. As Napoleon's army under General Junot entered Lisbon meeting no resistance, Portugal's royal family fled on a British fleet to Brazil, where it remained in exile until 1821. In the meantime, Portugal's overseas empire was again under threat. There was a power vacuum as the monarch was absent, foreign armies were present, and new political notions of liberalism and constitutional monarchy were exciting various groups of citizens.
       Again England came to the rescue, this time in the form of the armies of the duke of Wellington. Three successive French invasions of Portugal were defeated and expelled, and Wellington succeeded in carrying the war against Napoleon across the Portuguese frontier into Spain. The presence of the English army, the new French-born liberal ideas, and the political vacuum combined to create revolutionary conditions. The French invasions and the peninsular wars, where Portuguese armed forces played a key role, marked the beginning of a new era in politics.
       Liberalism and Constitutional Monarchy, 1822-1910
       During 1807-22, foreign invasions, war, and civil strife over conflicting political ideas gravely damaged Portugal's commerce, economy, and novice industry. The next terrible blow was the loss of Brazil in 1822, the jewel in the imperial crown. Portugal's very independence seemed to be at risk. In vain, Portugal sought to resist Brazilian independence by force, but in 1825 it formally acknowledged Brazilian independence by treaty.
       Portugal's slow recovery from the destructive French invasions and the "war of independence" was complicated by civil strife over the form of constitutional monarchy that best suited Portugal. After struggles over these issues between 1820 and 1834, Portugal settled somewhat uncertainly into a moderate constitutional monarchy whose constitution (Charter of 1826) lent it strong political powers to exert a moderating influence between the executive and legislative branches of the government. It also featured a new upper middle class based on land ownership and commerce; a Catholic Church that, although still important, lived with reduced privileges and property; a largely African (third) empire to which Lisbon and Oporto devoted increasing spiritual and material resources, starting with the liberal imperial plans of 1836 and 1851, and continuing with the work of institutions like the Lisbon Society of Geography (established 1875); and a mass of rural peasants whose bonds to the land weakened after 1850 and who began to immigrate in increasing numbers to Brazil and North America.
       Chronic military intervention in national politics began in 19th-century Portugal. Such intervention, usually commencing with coups or pronunciamentos (military revolts), was a shortcut to the spoils of political office and could reflect popular discontent as well as the power of personalities. An early example of this was the 1817 golpe (coup) attempt of General Gomes Freire against British military rule in Portugal before the return of King João VI from Brazil. Except for a more stable period from 1851 to 1880, military intervention in politics, or the threat thereof, became a feature of the constitutional monarchy's political life, and it continued into the First Republic and the subsequent Estado Novo.
       Beginning with the Regeneration period (1851-80), Portugal experienced greater political stability and economic progress. Military intervention in politics virtually ceased; industrialization and construction of railroads, roads, and bridges proceeded; two political parties (Regenerators and Historicals) worked out a system of rotation in power; and leading intellectuals sparked a cultural revival in several fields. In 19th-century literature, there was a new golden age led by such figures as Alexandre Herculano (historian), Eça de Queirós (novelist), Almeida Garrett (playwright and essayist), Antero de Quental (poet), and Joaquim Oliveira Martins (historian and social scientist). In its third overseas empire, Portugal attempted to replace the slave trade and slavery with legitimate economic activities; to reform the administration; and to expand Portuguese holdings beyond coastal footholds deep into the African hinterlands in West, West Central, and East Africa. After 1841, to some extent, and especially after 1870, colonial affairs, combined with intense nationalism, pressures for economic profit in Africa, sentiment for national revival, and the drift of European affairs would make or break Lisbon governments.
       Beginning with the political crisis that arose out of the "English Ultimatum" affair of January 1890, the monarchy became discredtted and identified with the poorly functioning government, political parties splintered, and republicanism found more supporters. Portugal participated in the "Scramble for Africa," expanding its African holdings, but failed to annex territory connecting Angola and Mozambique. A growing foreign debt and state bankruptcy as of the early 1890s damaged the constitutional monarchy's reputation, despite the efforts of King Carlos in diplomacy, the renewal of the alliance in the Windsor Treaty of 1899, and the successful if bloody colonial wars in the empire (1880-97). Republicanism proclaimed that Portugal's weak economy and poor society were due to two historic institutions: the monarchy and the Catholic Church. A republic, its stalwarts claimed, would bring greater individual liberty; efficient, if more decentralized government; and a stronger colonial program while stripping the Church of its role in both society and education.
       As the monarchy lost support and republicans became more aggressive, violence increased in politics. King Carlos I and his heir Luís were murdered in Lisbon by anarchist-republicans on 1 February 1908. Following a military and civil insurrection and fighting between monarchist and republican forces, on 5 October 1910, King Manuel II fled Portugal and a republic was proclaimed.
       First Parliamentary Republic, 1910-26
       Portugal's first attempt at republican government was the most unstable, turbulent parliamentary republic in the history of 20th-century Western Europe. During a little under 16 years of the republic, there were 45 governments, a number of legislatures that did not complete normal terms, military coups, and only one president who completed his four-year term in office. Portuguese society was poorly prepared for this political experiment. Among the deadly legacies of the monarchy were a huge public debt; a largely rural, apolitical, and illiterate peasant population; conflict over the causes of the country's misfortunes; and lack of experience with a pluralist, democratic system.
       The republic had some talented leadership but lacked popular, institutional, and economic support. The 1911 republican constitution established only a limited democracy, as only a small portion of the adult male citizenry was eligible to vote. In a country where the majority was Catholic, the republic passed harshly anticlerical laws, and its institutions and supporters persecuted both the Church and its adherents. During its brief disjointed life, the First Republic drafted important reform plans in economic, social, and educational affairs; actively promoted development in the empire; and pursued a liberal, generous foreign policy. Following British requests for Portugal's assistance in World War I, Portugal entered the war on the Allied side in March 1916 and sent armies to Flanders and Portuguese Africa. Portugal's intervention in that conflict, however, was too costly in many respects, and the ultimate failure of the republic in part may be ascribed to Portugal's World War I activities.
       Unfortunately for the republic, its time coincided with new threats to Portugal's African possessions: World War I, social and political demands from various classes that could not be reconciled, excessive military intervention in politics, and, in particular, the worst economic and financial crisis Portugal had experienced since the 16th and 17th centuries. After the original Portuguese Republican Party (PRP, also known as the "Democrats") splintered into three warring groups in 1912, no true multiparty system emerged. The Democrats, except for only one or two elections, held an iron monopoly of electoral power, and political corruption became a major issue. As extreme right-wing dictatorships elsewhere in Europe began to take power in Italy (1922), neighboring Spain (1923), and Greece (1925), what scant popular support remained for the republic collapsed. Backed by a right-wing coalition of landowners from Alentejo, clergy, Coimbra University faculty and students, Catholic organizations, and big business, career military officers led by General Gomes da Costa executed a coup on 28 May 1926, turned out the last republican government, and established a military government.
       The Estado Novo (New State), 1926-74
       During the military phase (1926-32) of the Estado Novo, professional military officers, largely from the army, governed and administered Portugal and held key cabinet posts, but soon discovered that the military possessed no magic formula that could readily solve the problems inherited from the First Republic. Especially during the years 1926-31, the military dictatorship, even with its political repression of republican activities and institutions (military censorship of the press, political police action, and closure of the republic's rowdy parliament), was characterized by similar weaknesses: personalism and factionalism; military coups and political instability, including civil strife and loss of life; state debt and bankruptcy; and a weak economy. "Barracks parliamentarism" was not an acceptable alternative even to the "Nightmare Republic."
       Led by General Óscar Carmona, who had replaced and sent into exile General Gomes da Costa, the military dictatorship turned to a civilian expert in finance and economics to break the budget impasse and bring coherence to the disorganized system. Appointed minister of finance on 27 April 1928, the Coimbra University Law School professor of economics Antônio de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970) first reformed finance, helped balance the budget, and then turned to other concerns as he garnered extraordinary governing powers. In 1930, he was appointed interim head of another key ministry (Colonies) and within a few years had become, in effect, a civilian dictator who, with the military hierarchy's support, provided the government with coherence, a program, and a set of policies.
       For nearly 40 years after he was appointed the first civilian prime minister in 1932, Salazar's personality dominated the government. Unlike extreme right-wing dictators elsewhere in Europe, Salazar was directly appointed by the army but was never endorsed by a popular political party, street militia, or voter base. The scholarly, reclusive former Coimbra University professor built up what became known after 1932 as the Estado Novo ("New State"), which at the time of its overthrow by another military coup in 1974, was the longest surviving authoritarian regime in Western Europe. The system of Salazar and the largely academic and technocratic ruling group he gathered in his cabinets was based on the central bureaucracy of the state, which was supported by the president of the republic—always a senior career military officer, General Óscar Carmona (1928-51), General Craveiro Lopes (1951-58), and Admiral Américo Tómaz (1958-74)—and the complicity of various institutions. These included a rubber-stamp legislature called the National Assembly (1935-74) and a political police known under various names: PVDE (1932-45), PIDE (1945-69),
       and DGS (1969-74). Other defenders of the Estado Novo security were paramilitary organizations such as the National Republican Guard (GNR); the Portuguese Legion (PL); and the Portuguese Youth [Movement]. In addition to censorship of the media, theater, and books, there was political repression and a deliberate policy of depoliticization. All political parties except for the approved movement of regime loyalists, the União Nacional or (National Union), were banned.
       The most vigorous and more popular period of the New State was 1932-44, when the basic structures were established. Never monolithic or entirely the work of one person (Salazar), the New State was constructed with the assistance of several dozen top associates who were mainly academics from law schools, some technocrats with specialized skills, and a handful of trusted career military officers. The 1933 Constitution declared Portugal to be a "unitary, corporative Republic," and pressures to restore the monarchy were resisted. Although some of the regime's followers were fascists and pseudofascists, many more were conservative Catholics, integralists, nationalists, and monarchists of different varieties, and even some reactionary republicans. If the New State was authoritarian, it was not totalitarian and, unlike fascism in Benito Mussolini's Italy or Adolf Hitler's Germany, it usually employed the minimum of violence necessary to defeat what remained a largely fractious, incoherent opposition.
       With the tumultuous Second Republic and the subsequent civil war in nearby Spain, the regime felt threatened and reinforced its defenses. During what Salazar rightly perceived as a time of foreign policy crisis for Portugal (1936-45), he assumed control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From there, he pursued four basic foreign policy objectives: supporting the Nationalist rebels of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and concluding defense treaties with a triumphant Franco; ensuring that General Franco in an exhausted Spain did not enter World War II on the Axis side; maintaining Portuguese neutrality in World War II with a post-1942 tilt toward the Allies, including granting Britain and the United States use of bases in the Azores Islands; and preserving and protecting Portugal's Atlantic Islands and its extensive, if poor, overseas empire in Africa and Asia.
       During the middle years of the New State (1944-58), many key Salazar associates in government either died or resigned, and there was greater social unrest in the form of unprecedented strikes and clandestine Communist activities, intensified opposition, and new threatening international pressures on Portugal's overseas empire. During the earlier phase of the Cold War (1947-60), Portugal became a steadfast, if weak, member of the US-dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance and, in 1955, with American support, Portugal joined the United Nations (UN). Colonial affairs remained a central concern of the regime. As of 1939, Portugal was the third largest colonial power in the world and possessed territories in tropical Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe Islands) and the remnants of its 16th-century empire in Asia (Goa, Damão, Diu, East Timor, and Macau). Beginning in the early 1950s, following the independence of India in 1947, Portugal resisted Indian pressures to decolonize Portuguese India and used police forces to discourage internal opposition in its Asian and African colonies.
       The later years of the New State (1958-68) witnessed the aging of the increasingly isolated but feared Salazar and new threats both at home and overseas. Although the regime easily overcame the brief oppositionist threat from rival presidential candidate General Humberto Delgado in the spring of 1958, new developments in the African and Asian empires imperiled the authoritarian system. In February 1961, oppositionists hijacked the Portuguese ocean liner Santa Maria and, in following weeks, African insurgents in northern Angola, although they failed to expel the Portuguese, gained worldwide media attention, discredited the New State, and began the 13-year colonial war. After thwarting a dissident military coup against his continued leadership, Salazar and his ruling group mobilized military repression in Angola and attempted to develop the African colonies at a faster pace in order to ensure Portuguese control. Meanwhile, the other European colonial powers (Britain, France, Belgium, and Spain) rapidly granted political independence to their African territories.
       At the time of Salazar's removal from power in September 1968, following a stroke, Portugal's efforts to maintain control over its colonies appeared to be successful. President Americo Tomás appointed Dr. Marcello Caetano as Salazar's successor as prime minister. While maintaining the New State's basic structures, and continuing the regime's essential colonial policy, Caetano attempted wider reforms in colonial administration and some devolution of power from Lisbon, as well as more freedom of expression in Lisbon. Still, a great deal of the budget was devoted to supporting the wars against the insurgencies in Africa. Meanwhile in Asia, Portuguese India had fallen when the Indian army invaded in December 1961. The loss of Goa was a psychological blow to the leadership of the New State, and of the Asian empire only East Timor and Macau remained.
       The Caetano years (1968-74) were but a hiatus between the waning Salazar era and a new regime. There was greater political freedom and rapid economic growth (5-6 percent annually to late 1973), but Caetano's government was unable to reform the old system thoroughly and refused to consider new methods either at home or in the empire. In the end, regime change came from junior officers of the professional military who organized the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) against the Caetano government. It was this group of several hundred officers, mainly in the army and navy, which engineered a largely bloodless coup in Lisbon on 25 April 1974. Their unexpected action brought down the 48-year-old New State and made possible the eventual establishment and consolidation of democratic governance in Portugal, as well as a reorientation of the country away from the Atlantic toward Europe.
       Revolution of Carnations, 1974-76
       Following successful military operations of the Armed Forces Movement against the Caetano government, Portugal experienced what became known as the "Revolution of Carnations." It so happened that during the rainy week of the military golpe, Lisbon flower shops were featuring carnations, and the revolutionaries and their supporters adopted the red carnation as the common symbol of the event, as well as of the new freedom from dictatorship. The MFA, whose leaders at first were mostly little-known majors and captains, proclaimed a three-fold program of change for the new Portugal: democracy; decolonization of the overseas empire, after ending the colonial wars; and developing a backward economy in the spirit of opportunity and equality. During the first 24 months after the coup, there was civil strife, some anarchy, and a power struggle. With the passing of the Estado Novo, public euphoria burst forth as the new provisional military government proclaimed the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly, and abolished censorship, the political police, the Portuguese Legion, Portuguese Youth, and other New State organizations, including the National Union. Scores of political parties were born and joined the senior political party, the Portuguese Community Party (PCP), and the Socialist Party (PS), founded shortly before the coup.
       Portugal's Revolution of Carnations went through several phases. There was an attempt to take control by radical leftists, including the PCP and its allies. This was thwarted by moderate officers in the army, as well as by the efforts of two political parties: the PS and the Social Democrats (PPD, later PSD). The first phase was from April to September 1974. Provisional president General Antonio Spínola, whose 1974 book Portugal and the Future had helped prepare public opinion for the coup, met irresistible leftist pressures. After Spinola's efforts to avoid rapid decolonization of the African empire failed, he resigned in September 1974. During the second phase, from September 1974 to March 1975, radical military officers gained control, but a coup attempt by General Spínola and his supporters in Lisbon in March 1975 failed and Spínola fled to Spain.
       In the third phase of the Revolution, March-November 1975, a strong leftist reaction followed. Farm workers occupied and "nationalized" 1.1 million hectares of farmland in the Alentejo province, and radical military officers in the provisional government ordered the nationalization of Portuguese banks (foreign banks were exempted), utilities, and major industries, or about 60 percent of the economic system. There were power struggles among various political parties — a total of 50 emerged—and in the streets there was civil strife among labor, military, and law enforcement groups. A constituent assembly, elected on 25 April 1975, in Portugal's first free elections since 1926, drafted a democratic constitution. The Council of the Revolution (CR), briefly a revolutionary military watchdog committee, was entrenched as part of the government under the constitution, until a later revision. During the chaotic year of 1975, about 30 persons were killed in political frays while unstable provisional governments came and went. On 25 November 1975, moderate military forces led by Colonel Ramalho Eanes, who later was twice elected president of the republic (1976 and 1981), defeated radical, leftist military groups' revolutionary conspiracies.
       In the meantime, Portugal's scattered overseas empire experienced a precipitous and unprepared decolonization. One by one, the former colonies were granted and accepted independence—Guinea-Bissau (September 1974), Cape Verde Islands (July 1975), and Mozambique (July 1975). Portugal offered to turn over Macau to the People's Republic of China, but the offer was refused then and later negotiations led to the establishment of a formal decolonization or hand-over date of 1999. But in two former colonies, the process of decolonization had tragic results.
       In Angola, decolonization negotiations were greatly complicated by the fact that there were three rival nationalist movements in a struggle for power. The January 1975 Alvor Agreement signed by Portugal and these three parties was not effectively implemented. A bloody civil war broke out in Angola in the spring of 1975 and, when Portuguese armed forces withdrew and declared that Angola was independent on 11 November 1975, the bloodshed only increased. Meanwhile, most of the white Portuguese settlers from Angola and Mozambique fled during the course of 1975. Together with African refugees, more than 600,000 of these retornados ("returned ones") went by ship and air to Portugal and thousands more to Namibia, South Africa, Brazil, Canada, and the United States.
       The second major decolonization disaster was in Portugal's colony of East Timor in the Indonesian archipelago. Portugal's capacity to supervise and control a peaceful transition to independence in this isolated, neglected colony was limited by the strength of giant Indonesia, distance from Lisbon, and Portugal's revolutionary disorder and inability to defend Timor. In early December 1975, before Portugal granted formal independence and as one party, FRETILIN, unilaterally declared East Timor's independence, Indonesia's armed forces invaded, conquered, and annexed East Timor. Indonesian occupation encountered East Timorese resistance, and a heavy loss of life followed. The East Timor question remained a contentious international issue in the UN, as well as in Lisbon and Jakarta, for more than 20 years following Indonesia's invasion and annexation of the former colony of Portugal. Major changes occurred, beginning in 1998, after Indonesia underwent a political revolution and allowed a referendum in East Timor to decide that territory's political future in August 1999. Most East Timorese chose independence, but Indonesian forces resisted that verdict until
       UN intervention in September 1999. Following UN rule for several years, East Timor attained full independence on 20 May 2002.
       Consolidation of Democracy, 1976-2000
       After several free elections and record voter turnouts between 25 April 1975 and June 1976, civil war was averted and Portugal's second democratic republic began to stabilize. The MFA was dissolved, the military were returned to the barracks, and increasingly elected civilians took over the government of the country. The 1976 Constitution was revised several times beginning in 1982 and 1989, in order to reempha-size the principle of free enterprise in the economy while much of the large, nationalized sector was privatized. In June 1976, General Ram-alho Eanes was elected the first constitutional president of the republic (five-year term), and he appointed socialist leader Dr. Mário Soares as prime minister of the first constitutional government.
       From 1976 to 1985, Portugal's new system featured a weak economy and finances, labor unrest, and administrative and political instability. The difficult consolidation of democratic governance was eased in part by the strong currency and gold reserves inherited from the Estado Novo, but Lisbon seemed unable to cope with high unemployment, new debt, the complex impact of the refugees from Africa, world recession, and the agitation of political parties. Four major parties emerged from the maelstrom of 1974-75, except for the Communist Party, all newly founded. They were, from left to right, the Communists (PCP); the Socialists (PS), who managed to dominate governments and the legislature but not win a majority in the Assembly of the Republic; the Social Democrats (PSD); and the Christian Democrats (CDS). During this period, the annual growth rate was low (l-2 percent), and the nationalized sector of the economy stagnated.
       Enhanced economic growth, greater political stability, and more effective central government as of 1985, and especially 1987, were due to several developments. In 1977, Portugal applied for membership in the European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union (EU) since 1993. In January 1986, with Spain, Portugal was granted membership, and economic and financial progress in the intervening years has been significantly influenced by the comparatively large investment, loans, technology, advice, and other assistance from the EEC. Low unemployment, high annual growth rates (5 percent), and moderate inflation have also been induced by the new political and administrative stability in Lisbon. Led by Prime Minister Cavaco Silva, an economist who was trained abroad, the PSD's strong organization, management, and electoral support since 1985 have assisted in encouraging economic recovery and development. In 1985, the PSD turned the PS out of office and won the general election, although they did not have an absolute majority of assembly seats. In 1986, Mário Soares was elected president of the republic, the first civilian to hold that office since the First Republic. In the elections of 1987 and 1991, however, the PSD was returned to power with clear majorities of over 50 percent of the vote.
       Although the PSD received 50.4 percent of the vote in the 1991 parliamentary elections and held a 42-seat majority in the Assembly of the Republic, the party began to lose public support following media revelations regarding corruption and complaints about Prime Minister Cavaco Silva's perceived arrogant leadership style. President Mário Soares voiced criticism of the PSD's seemingly untouchable majority and described a "tyranny of the majority." Economic growth slowed down. In the parliamentary elections of 1995 and the presidential election of 1996, the PSD's dominance ended for the time being. Prime Minister Antônio Guterres came to office when the PS won the October 1995 elections, and in the subsequent presidential contest, in January 1996, socialist Jorge Sampaio, the former mayor of Lisbon, was elected president of the republic, thus defeating Cavaco Silva's bid. Young and popular, Guterres moved the PS toward the center of the political spectrum. Under Guterres, the PS won the October 1999 parliamentary elections. The PS defeated the PSD but did not manage to win a clear, working majority of seats, and this made the PS dependent upon alliances with smaller parties, including the PCP.
       In the local elections in December 2001, the PSD's criticism of PS's heavy public spending allowed the PSD to take control of the key cities of Lisbon, Oporto, and Coimbra. Guterres resigned, and parliamentary elections were brought forward from 2004 to March 2002. The PSD won a narrow victory with 40 percent of the votes, and Jose Durão Barroso became prime minister. Having failed to win a majority of the seats in parliament forced the PSD to govern in coalition with the right-wing Popular Party (PP) led by Paulo Portas. Durão Barroso set about reducing government spending by cutting the budgets of local authorities, freezing civil service hiring, and reviving the economy by accelerating privatization of state-owned enterprises. These measures provoked a 24-hour strike by public-sector workers. Durão Barroso reacted with vows to press ahead with budget-cutting measures and imposed a wage freeze on all employees earning more than €1,000, which affected more than one-half of Portugal's work force.
       In June 2004, Durão Barroso was invited by Romano Prodi to succeed him as president of the European Commission. Durão Barroso accepted and resigned the prime ministership in July. Pedro Santana Lopes, the leader of the PSD, became prime minister. Already unpopular at the time of Durão Barroso's resignation, the PSD-led government became increasingly unpopular under Santana Lopes. A month-long delay in the start of the school year and confusion over his plan to cut taxes and raise public-sector salaries, eroded confidence even more. By November, Santana Lopes's government was so unpopular that President Jorge Sampaio was obliged to dissolve parliament and hold new elections, two years ahead of schedule.
       Parliamentary elections were held on 20 February 2005. The PS, which had promised the electorate disciplined and transparent governance, educational reform, the alleviation of poverty, and a boost in employment, won 45 percent of the vote and the majority of the seats in parliament. The leader of the PS, José Sôcrates became prime minister on 12 March 2005. In the regularly scheduled presidential elections held on 6 January 2006, the former leader of the PSD and prime minister, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, won a narrow victory and became president on 9 March 2006. With a mass protest, public teachers' strike, and street demonstrations in March 2008, Portugal's media, educational, and social systems experienced more severe pressures. With the spreading global recession beginning in September 2008, Portugal's economic and financial systems became more troubled.
       Owing to its geographic location on the southwestern most edge of continental Europe, Portugal has been historically in but not of Europe. Almost from the beginning of its existence in the 12th century as an independent monarchy, Portugal turned its back on Europe and oriented itself toward the Atlantic Ocean. After carving out a Christian kingdom on the western portion of the Iberian peninsula, Portuguese kings gradually built and maintained a vast seaborne global empire that became central to the way Portugal understood its individuality as a nation-state. While the creation of this empire allows Portugal to claim an unusual number of "firsts" or distinctions in world and Western history, it also retarded Portugal's economic, social, and political development. It can be reasonably argued that the Revolution of 25 April 1974 was the most decisive event in Portugal's long history because it finally ended Portugal's oceanic mission and view of itself as an imperial power. After the 1974 Revolution, Portugal turned away from its global mission and vigorously reoriented itself toward Europe. Contemporary Portugal is now both in and of Europe.
       The turn toward Europe began immediately after 25 April 1974. Portugal granted independence to its African colonies in 1975. It was admitted to the European Council and took the first steps toward accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1976. On 28 March 1977, the Portuguese government officially applied for EEC membership. Because of Portugal's economic and social backwardness, which would require vast sums of EEC money to overcome, negotiations for membership were long and difficult. Finally, a treaty of accession was signed on 12 June 1985. Portugal officially joined the EEC (the European Union [EU] since 1993) on 1 January 1986. Since becoming a full-fledged member of the EU, Portugal has been steadily overcoming the economic and social underdevelopment caused by its imperial past and is becoming more like the rest of Europe.
       Membership in the EU has speeded up the structural transformation of Portugal's economy, which actually began during the Estado Novo. Investments made by the Estado Novo in Portugal's economy began to shift employment out of the agricultural sector, which, in 1950, accounted for 50 percent of Portugal's economically active population. Today, only 10 percent of the economically active population is employed in the agricultural sector (the highest among EU member states); 30 percent in the industrial sector (also the highest among EU member states); and 60 percent in the service sector (the lowest among EU member states). The economically active population numbers about 5,000,000 employed, 56 percent of whom are women. Women workers are the majority of the workforce in the agricultural and service sectors (the highest among the EU member states). The expansion of the service sector has been primarily in health care and education. Portugal has had the lowest unemployment rates among EU member states, with the overall rate never being more than 10 percent of the active population. Since joining the EU, the number of employers increased from 2.6 percent to 5.8 percent of the active population; self-employed from 16 to 19 percent; and employees from 65 to 70 percent. Twenty-six percent of the employers are women. Unemployment tends to hit younger workers in industry and transportation, women employed in domestic service, workers on short-term contracts, and poorly educated workers. Salaried workers earn only 63 percent of the EU average, and hourly workers only one-third to one-half of that earned by their EU counterparts. Despite having had the second highest growth of gross national product (GNP) per inhabitant (after Ireland) among EU member states, the above data suggest that while much has been accomplished in terms of modernizing the Portuguese economy, much remains to be done to bring Portugal's economy up to the level of the "average" EU member state.
       Membership in the EU has also speeded up changes in Portuguese society. Over the last 30 years, coastalization and urbanization have intensified. Fully 50 percent of Portuguese live in the coastal urban conurbations of Lisbon, Oporto, Braga, Aveiro, Coimbra, Viseu, Évora, and Faro. The Portuguese population is one of the oldest among EU member states (17.3 percent are 65 years of age or older) thanks to a considerable increase in life expectancy at birth (77.87 years for the total population, 74.6 years for men, 81.36 years for women) and one of the lowest birthrates (10.59 births/1,000) in Europe. Family size averages 2.8 persons per household, with the strict nuclear family (one or two generations) in which both parents work being typical. Common law marriages, cohabitating couples, and single-parent households are more and more common. The divorce rate has also increased. "Youth Culture" has developed. The young have their own meeting places, leisure-time activities, and nightlife (bars, clubs, and discos).
       All Portuguese citizens, whether they have contributed or not, have a right to an old-age pension, invalidity benefits, widowed persons' pension, as well as payments for disabilities, children, unemployment, and large families. There is a national minimum wage (€385 per month), which is low by EU standards. The rapid aging of Portugal's population has changed the ratio of contributors to pensioners to 1.7, the lowest in the EU. This has created deficits in Portugal's social security fund.
       The adult literacy rate is about 92 percent. Illiteracy is still found among the elderly. Although universal compulsory education up to grade 9 was achieved in 1980, only 21.2 percent of the population aged 25-64 had undergone secondary education, compared to an EU average of 65.7 percent. Portugal's higher education system currently consists of 14 state universities and 14 private universities, 15 state polytechnic institutions, one Catholic university, and one military academy. All in all, Portugal spends a greater percentage of its state budget on education than most EU member states. Despite this high level of expenditure, the troubled Portuguese education system does not perform well. Early leaving and repetition rates are among the highest among EU member states.
       After the Revolution of 25 April 1974, Portugal created a National Health Service, which today consists of 221 hospitals and 512 medical centers employing 33,751 doctors and 41,799 nurses. Like its education system, Portugal's medical system is inefficient. There are long waiting lists for appointments with specialists and for surgical procedures.
       Structural changes in Portugal's economy and society mean that social life in Portugal is not too different from that in other EU member states. A mass consumption society has been created. Televisions, telephones, refrigerators, cars, music equipment, mobile phones, and personal computers are commonplace. Sixty percent of Portuguese households possess at least one automobile, and 65 percent of Portuguese own their own home. Portuguese citizens are more aware of their legal rights than ever before. This has resulted in a trebling of the number of legal proceeding since 1960 and an eight-fold increase in the number of lawyers. In general, Portuguese society has become more permissive and secular; the Catholic Church and the armed forces are much less influential than in the past. Portugal's population is also much more culturally, religiously, and ethnically diverse, a consequence of the coming to Portugal of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, mainly from former African colonies.
       Portuguese are becoming more cosmopolitan and sophisticated through the impact of world media, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. A prime case in point came in the summer and early fall of 1999, with the extraordinary events in East Timor and the massive Portuguese popular responses. An internationally monitored referendum in East Timor, Portugal's former colony in the Indonesian archipelago and under Indonesian occupation from late 1975 to summer 1999, resulted in a vote of 78.5 percent for rejecting integration with Indonesia and for independence. When Indonesian prointegration gangs, aided by the Indonesian military, responded to the referendum with widespread brutality and threatened to reverse the verdict of the referendum, there was a spontaneous popular outpouring of protest in the cities and towns of Portugal. An avalanche of Portuguese e-mail fell on leaders and groups in the UN and in certain countries around the world as Portugal's diplomats, perhaps to compensate for the weak initial response to Indonesian armed aggression in 1975, called for the protection of East Timor as an independent state and for UN intervention to thwart Indonesian action. Using global communications networks, the Portuguese were able to mobilize UN and world public opinion against Indonesian actions and aided the eventual independence of East Timor on 20 May 2002.
       From the Revolution of 25 April 1974 until the 1990s, Portugal had a large number of political parties, one of the largest Communist parties in western Europe, frequent elections, and endemic cabinet instability. Since the 1990s, the number of political parties has been dramatically reduced and cabinet stability increased. Gradually, the Portuguese electorate has concentrated around two larger parties, the right-of-center Social Democrats (PSD) and the left-of-center Socialist (PS). In the 1980s, these two parties together garnered 65 percent of the vote and 70 percent of the seats in parliament. In 2005, these percentages had risen to 74 percent and 85 percent, respectively. In effect, Portugal is currently a two-party dominant system in which the two largest parties — PS and PSD—alternate in and out of power, not unlike the rotation of the two main political parties (the Regenerators and the Historicals) during the last decades (1850s to 1880s) of the liberal constitutional monarchy. As Portugal's democracy has consolidated, turnout rates for the eligible electorate have declined. In the 1970s, turnout was 85 percent. In Portugal's most recent parliamentary election (2005), turnout had fallen to 65 percent of the eligible electorate.
       Portugal has benefited greatly from membership in the EU, and whatever doubts remain about the price paid for membership, no Portuguese government in the near future can afford to sever this connection. The vast majority of Portuguese citizens see membership in the EU as a "good thing" and strongly believe that Portugal has benefited from membership. Only the Communist Party opposed membership because it reduces national sovereignty, serves the interests of capitalists not workers, and suffers from a democratic deficit. Despite the high level of support for the EU, Portuguese voters are increasingly not voting in elections for the European Parliament, however. Turnout for European Parliament elections fell from 40 percent of the eligible electorate in the 1999 elections to 38 percent in the 2004 elections.
       In sum, Portugal's turn toward Europe has done much to overcome its backwardness. However, despite the economic, social, and political progress made since 1986, Portugal has a long way to go before it can claim to be on a par with the level found even in Spain, much less the rest of western Europe. As Portugal struggles to move from underde-velopment, especially in the rural areas away from the coast, it must keep in mind the perils of too rapid modern development, which could damage two of its most precious assets: its scenery and environment. The growth and future prosperity of the economy will depend on the degree to which the government and the private sector will remain stewards of clean air, soil, water, and other finite resources on which the tourism industry depends and on which Portugal's world image as a unique place to visit rests. Currently, Portugal is investing heavily in renewable energy from solar, wind, and wave power in order to account for about 50 percent of its electricity needs by 2010. Portugal opened the world's largest solar power plant and the world's first commercial wave power farm in 2006.
       An American documentary film on Portugal produced in the 1970s described this little country as having "a Past in Search of a Future." In the years after the Revolution of 25 April 1974, it could be said that Portugal is now living in "a Present in Search of a Future." Increasingly, that future lies in Europe as an active and productive member of the EU.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Historical Portugal

  • 8 Stephenson, George

    [br]
    b. 9 June 1781 Wylam, Northumberland, England
    d. 12 August 1848 Tapton House, Chesterfield, England
    [br]
    English engineer, "the father of railways".
    [br]
    George Stephenson was the son of the fireman of the pumping engine at Wylam colliery, and horses drew wagons of coal along the wooden rails of the Wylam wagonway past the house in which he was born and spent his earliest childhood. While still a child he worked as a cowherd, but soon moved to working at coal pits. At 17 years of age he showed sufficient mechanical talent to be placed in charge of a new pumping engine, and had already achieved a job more responsible than that of his father. Despite his position he was still illiterate, although he subsequently learned to read and write. He was largely self-educated.
    In 1801 he was appointed Brakesman of the winding engine at Black Callerton pit, with responsibility for lowering the miners safely to their work. Then, about two years later, he became Brakesman of a new winding engine erected by Robert Hawthorn at Willington Quay on the Tyne. Returning collier brigs discharged ballast into wagons and the engine drew the wagons up an inclined plane to the top of "Ballast Hill" for their contents to be tipped; this was one of the earliest applications of steam power to transport, other than experimentally.
    In 1804 Stephenson moved to West Moor pit, Killingworth, again as Brakesman. In 1811 he demonstrated his mechanical skill by successfully modifying a new and unsatisfactory atmospheric engine, a task that had defeated the efforts of others, to enable it to pump a drowned pit clear of water. The following year he was appointed Enginewright at Killingworth, in charge of the machinery in all the collieries of the "Grand Allies", the prominent coal-owning families of Wortley, Liddell and Bowes, with authorization also to work for others. He built many stationary engines and he closely examined locomotives of John Blenkinsop's type on the Kenton \& Coxlodge wagonway, as well as those of William Hedley at Wylam.
    It was in 1813 that Sir Thomas Liddell requested George Stephenson to build a steam locomotive for the Killingworth wagonway: Blucher made its first trial run on 25 July 1814 and was based on Blenkinsop's locomotives, although it lacked their rack-and-pinion drive. George Stephenson is credited with building the first locomotive both to run on edge rails and be driven by adhesion, an arrangement that has been the conventional one ever since. Yet Blucher was far from perfect and over the next few years, while other engineers ignored the steam locomotive, Stephenson built a succession of them, each an improvement on the last.
    During this period many lives were lost in coalmines from explosions of gas ignited by miners' lamps. By observation and experiment (sometimes at great personal risk) Stephenson invented a satisfactory safety lamp, working independently of the noted scientist Sir Humphry Davy who also invented such a lamp around the same time.
    In 1817 George Stephenson designed his first locomotive for an outside customer, the Kilmarnock \& Troon Railway, and in 1819 he laid out the Hetton Colliery Railway in County Durham, for which his brother Robert was Resident Engineer. This was the first railway to be worked entirely without animal traction: it used inclined planes with stationary engines, self-acting inclined planes powered by gravity, and locomotives.
    On 19 April 1821 Stephenson was introduced to Edward Pease, one of the main promoters of the Stockton \& Darlington Railway (S \& DR), which by coincidence received its Act of Parliament the same day. George Stephenson carried out a further survey, to improve the proposed line, and in this he was assisted by his 18-year-old son, Robert Stephenson, whom he had ensured received the theoretical education which he himself lacked. It is doubtful whether either could have succeeded without the other; together they were to make the steam railway practicable.
    At George Stephenson's instance, much of the S \& DR was laid with wrought-iron rails recently developed by John Birkinshaw at Bedlington Ironworks, Morpeth. These were longer than cast-iron rails and were not brittle: they made a track well suited for locomotives. In June 1823 George and Robert Stephenson, with other partners, founded a firm in Newcastle upon Tyne to build locomotives and rolling stock and to do general engineering work: after its Managing Partner, the firm was called Robert Stephenson \& Co.
    In 1824 the promoters of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) invited George Stephenson to resurvey their proposed line in order to reduce opposition to it. William James, a wealthy land agent who had become a visionary protagonist of a national railway network and had seen Stephenson's locomotives at Killingworth, had promoted the L \& MR with some merchants of Liverpool and had carried out the first survey; however, he overreached himself in business and, shortly after the invitation to Stephenson, became bankrupt. In his own survey, however, George Stephenson lacked the assistance of his son Robert, who had left for South America, and he delegated much of the detailed work to incompetent assistants. During a devastating Parliamentary examination in the spring of 1825, much of his survey was shown to be seriously inaccurate and the L \& MR's application for an Act of Parliament was refused. The railway's promoters discharged Stephenson and had their line surveyed yet again, by C.B. Vignoles.
    The Stockton \& Darlington Railway was, however, triumphantly opened in the presence of vast crowds in September 1825, with Stephenson himself driving the locomotive Locomotion, which had been built at Robert Stephenson \& Co.'s Newcastle works. Once the railway was at work, horse-drawn and gravity-powered traffic shared the line with locomotives: in 1828 Stephenson invented the horse dandy, a wagon at the back of a train in which a horse could travel over the gravity-operated stretches, instead of trotting behind.
    Meanwhile, in May 1826, the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway had successfully obtained its Act of Parliament. Stephenson was appointed Engineer in June, and since he and Vignoles proved incompatible the latter left early in 1827. The railway was built by Stephenson and his staff, using direct labour. A considerable controversy arose c. 1828 over the motive power to be used: the traffic anticipated was too great for horses, but the performance of the reciprocal system of cable haulage developed by Benjamin Thompson appeared in many respects superior to that of contemporary locomotives. The company instituted a prize competition for a better locomotive and the Rainhill Trials were held in October 1829.
    Robert Stephenson had been working on improved locomotive designs since his return from America in 1827, but it was the L \& MR's Treasurer, Henry Booth, who suggested the multi-tubular boiler to George Stephenson. This was incorporated into a locomotive built by Robert Stephenson for the trials: Rocket was entered by the three men in partnership. The other principal entrants were Novelty, entered by John Braithwaite and John Ericsson, and Sans Pareil, entered by Timothy Hackworth, but only Rocket, driven by George Stephenson, met all the organizers' demands; indeed, it far surpassed them and demonstrated the practicability of the long-distance steam railway. With the opening of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway in 1830, the age of railways began.
    Stephenson was active in many aspects. He advised on the construction of the Belgian State Railway, of which the Brussels-Malines section, opened in 1835, was the first all-steam railway on the European continent. In England, proposals to link the L \& MR with the Midlands had culminated in an Act of Parliament for the Grand Junction Railway in 1833: this was to run from Warrington, which was already linked to the L \& MR, to Birmingham. George Stephenson had been in charge of the surveys, and for the railway's construction he and J.U. Rastrick were initially Principal Engineers, with Stephenson's former pupil Joseph Locke under them; by 1835 both Stephenson and Rastrick had withdrawn and Locke was Engineer-in-Chief. Stephenson remained much in demand elsewhere: he was particularly associated with the construction of the North Midland Railway (Derby to Leeds) and related lines. He was active in many other places and carried out, for instance, preliminary surveys for the Chester \& Holyhead and Newcastle \& Berwick Railways, which were important links in the lines of communication between London and, respectively, Dublin and Edinburgh.
    He eventually retired to Tapton House, Chesterfield, overlooking the North Midland. A man who was self-made (with great success) against colossal odds, he was ever reluctant, regrettably, to give others their due credit, although in retirement, immensely wealthy and full of honour, he was still able to mingle with people of all ranks.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, on its formation in 1847. Order of Leopold (Belgium) 1835. Stephenson refused both a knighthood and Fellowship of the Royal Society.
    Bibliography
    1815, jointly with Ralph Dodd, British patent no. 3,887 (locomotive drive by connecting rods directly to the wheels).
    1817, jointly with William Losh, British patent no. 4,067 (steam springs for locomotives, and improvements to track).
    Further Reading
    L.T.C.Rolt, 1960, George and Robert Stephenson, Longman (the best modern biography; includes a bibliography).
    S.Smiles, 1874, The Lives of George and Robert Stephenson, rev. edn, London (although sycophantic, this is probably the best nineteenthcentury biography).
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Stephenson, George

  • 9 population

    n
    население; жители

    to abuse the population — обижать население, плохо обращаться с жителями

    - actual population
    - adult population
    - age composition of the population
    - age-sex classification of the population
    - broad cross-section of the population
    - broad masses of population
    - bulk of the population
    - civilian population
    - cultural level of the population
    - cultural standard of the population
    - division of the population into social groups
    - economically active population
    - educational level of population
    - effective working population
    - employable population
    - ethnic composition of the population
    - ethnic homogeneity of the population
    - fluctuation of the population
    - geographical distribution of the population
    - illiterate population
    - income of the population
    - indigenous population
    - industrial population
    - inflow of rural population to towns
    - institutional population
    - laboring population
    - least privileged groups of population
    - legal education of the population
    - literate population
    - local population
    - low-bracket category of the population
    - marginal population
    - mixed population
    - native population
    - natural growth of population
    - needy population
    - poor sections of the population
    - population in the low income bracket
    - pressure of population upon resources
    - prison population
    - resident population
    - rural population
    - scarcity of population
    - section of the population
    - settled population
    - strata of the population
    - structure of the population
    - substantial proportion of the population
    - surplus population
    - total population
    - troops population
    - unprecedented rate of population growth
    - urban population
    - well-to-do sections of population
    - working population
    - world population

    Politics english-russian dictionary > population

  • 10 Baekeland, Leo Hendrik

    [br]
    b. 14 November 1863 Saint-Martens-Latern, Belgium
    d. 23 February 1944 Beacon, New York, USA
    [br]
    Belgian/American inventor of the Velox photographic process and the synthetic plastic Bakélite.
    [br]
    The son of an illiterate shoemaker, Baekeland was first apprenticed in that trade, but was encouraged by his mother to study, with spectacular results. He won a scholarship to Gand University and graduated in chemistry. Before he was 21 he had achieved his doctorate, and soon afterwards he obtained professorships at Bruges and then at Gand. Baekeland seemed set for a distinguished academic career, but he turned towards the industrial applications of chemistry, especially in photography.
    Baekeland travelled to New York to further this interest, but his first inventions met with little success so he decided to concentrate on one that seemed to have distinct commercial possibilities. This was a photographic paper that could be developed in artificial light; he called this "gas light" paper Velox, using the less sensitive silver chloride as a light-sensitive agent. It proved to have good properties and was easy to use, at a time of photography's rising popularity. By 1896 the process began to be profitable, and three years later Baekeland disposed of his plant to Eastman Kodak for a handsome sum, said to be $3–4 million. That enabled him to retire from business and set up a laboratory at Yonkers to pursue his own research, including on synthetic resins. Several chemists had earlier obtained resinous products from the reaction between phenol and formaldehyde but had ignored them. By 1907 Baekeland had achieved sufficient control over the reaction to obtain a good thermosetting resin which he called "Bakélite". It showed good electrical insulation and resistance to chemicals, and was unchanged by heat. It could be moulded while plastic and would then set hard on heating, with its only drawback being its brittleness. Bakelite was an immediate success in the electrical industry and Baekeland set up the General Bakelite Company in 1910 to manufacture and market the product. The firm grew steadily, becoming the Bakélite Corporation in 1924, with Baekeland still as active President.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    President, Electrochemical Society 1909. President, American Chemical Society 1924. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences 1936.
    Further Reading
    J.Gillis, 1965, Leo Baekeland, Brussels.
    A.R.Matthis, 1948, Leo H.Baekeland, Professeur, Docteur ès Sciences, chimiste, inventeur et grand industriel, Brussels.
    J.K.Mumford, 1924, The Story of Bakélite.
    C.F.Kettering, 1947, memoir on Baekeland, Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 24 (includes a list of his honours and publications).
    LRD

    Biographical history of technology > Baekeland, Leo Hendrik

  • 11 turn smb.'s stomach

    1) вызывать тошноту у кого-л.

    Philip had a squeamish appetite, and the thick slabs of poor butter on the bread turned his stomach, but he saw other boys scraping it off and followed their example. (W. S. Maugham, ‘Of Human Bondage’, ch. 11) — Филип был разборчив в еде, толстый слой не очень свежего масла сразу же вызвал у него тошноту; увидев, как другие мальчики соскребают это масло с хлеба, он последовал их примеру.

    2) возмущать кого-л., быть противным кому-л.; ≈ с души воротит

    Ward is more obsequious than ever to your mamma. It turns my stomach, it does, to hear him flatter... (W. Thackeray, ‘The Virginians’, ch. V) — Уорд пресмыкается перед вашей матушкой еще больше прежнего. Просто с души воротит слушать, как он льстит ей.

    I don't ever want to see you again, unless it's in the dock or the madhouse... The very sight of you turns my stomach, see? (J. B. Priestley, ‘Angel Pavement’, ch. X) — Я не хочу вас больше видеть нигде - разве что в сумасшедшем доме или на скамье подсудимых... Один ваш вид переворачивает мне все нутро, понимаете?

    There were times he almost turned my stomach. (S. Chaplin, ‘Sam in the Morning’, ch. 1) — Порой Уокер Джонсон вызывал у меня отвращение.

    That unctuous prig always talking about himself, his conceit turns my stomach. He's illiterate. (J. Updike, ‘The Centaur’, ch. I) — Напыщенный, медоточивый хвастун, который вечно болтает только о себе, меня тошнит от его тщеславия. Ведь он неграмотный.

    Large English-Russian phrasebook > turn smb.'s stomach

  • 12 carry a stiff upper lip

    не терять мужества, сохранять присутствие духа, не падать духом, не вешать носа, проявлять выдержку; см. тж. a stiff upper lip

    I want you to keep a stiff upper lip, whatever happens. (Th. Dreiser, ‘The Financier’, ch. XXIX) — Что бы ни случилось, отец, прошу тебя, не унывай.

    Once Philip saw a man, rough and illiterate, told his case was hopeless; and, selfcontrolled himself, he wondered at the splendid instinct which forced the fellow to keep a stiff upper lip before strangers. (W. S. Maugham, ‘Of Human Bondage’, ch. 81) — Как-то раз одному больному, неграмотному, неотесанному парню сказали, что его болезнь неизлечима. Филип, который и сам обладал большой выдержкой, поразился врожденной силе духа этого человека, благодаря которой он с таким мужеством держался перед чужими людьми.

    Of course, he's young to be away... I had to keep a stiff upper lip when I parted from him, I assure you. (R. Aldington, ‘All Men Are Enemies’, part IV, ch. 2) — Конечно, он еще слишком мал, чтобы жить вне дома... Мне, уверяю вас, пришлось напустить на себя ужасную строгость, когда мы расставались.

    There's no use trying to fool myself any longer - trying to keep a stiff upper lip when I know deep down inside of me that I'm through - a failure - a self-made failure. (E. Caldwell, ‘Gretta’, part II, ch. VII) — Нет смысла дурачить себя и хорохориться, когда всем нутром чувствуешь, что терпишь неудачу, в которой сам повинен.

    Large English-Russian phrasebook > carry a stiff upper lip

  • 13 aliterate

    Как прилагательное aliterate можно перевести как «нежелающий извлекать информацию из написанных или напечатанных источников»; «умеющий читать, но предпочитающий не читать». Как существительное an aliterate обозначает человека, умеющего читать, но предпочитающего не письменные, а другие источники информации, например телевидение, кино, компьютер. Это латинское слово состоит из греческой приставки a - (без) и literate (грамотный). Не путать с прилагательным illiterate (неграмотный) или глаголом alliterate (аллитерировать). Хотя слово aliterate появилось в 1960-х гг., лишь в 80-х стало очевидно, что возросшая популярность телевидения и других средств информации, связанных с видеорядом (в том числе и компьютеров), влияет на способность молодых людей читать и грамотно писать.

    In 1985 at least one third of the population of the USA was said to be aliterate. — В 1985 г. по крайней мере 1/3 населения США считалась не читающей, т. е. не пользующейся письменными источниками информации.

    English-Russian dictionary of expressions > aliterate

  • 14 keep a stiff upper lip

       нe тepять мужecтвa, coxpaнять пpиcутcтвиe дуxa, нe пaдaть дуxoм, нe вeшaть нoca, пpoявлять выдepжку
        Once Philip saw a man, rough and Illiterate, told his case was hopeless [eгo бoлeзнь нeизлeчимa]; and, selfcontrolled himself, he wondered the splendid instinct which forced the fellow to keep a stiff upper lip before strangers (W. S. Maugham)

    Concise English-Russian phrasebook > keep a stiff upper lip

  • 15 foredoomed

    Adj
    1. असफलता\foredoomedका\foredoomedपूर्वाभास
    The fate of an illiterate man is foredoomed.

    English-Hindi dictionary > foredoomed

  • 16 ♦ sixteen

    ♦ sixteen /sɪkˈsti:n/
    a. e n.
    1 sedici: a sixteen-metre drop, un dislivello di sedici metri; Sixteen is my lucky number, il sedici è il mio numero fortunato; There are sixteen of them, sono in sedici; Sixteen out of thirty adults were illiterate, sedici adulti su trenta erano analfabeti
    2 sedici ( anni d'età): The girl isn't sixteen yet, la ragazza non ha ancora sedici anni; a sixteen-year-old, un ragazzo (o una ragazza) di sedici anni, un (o una) sedicenne.

    English-Italian dictionary > ♦ sixteen

  • 17 ignorant

    неве́жественный ( illiterate)

    be ignorant of the fact... — не знать того́, что...

    The Americanisms. English-Russian dictionary. > ignorant

  • 18 intellectual

    1. n интеллигент; представитель интеллигенции; работник умственного труда
    2. n разг. мыслящий человек; человек широких интеллектуальных интересов и запросов; интеллектуал
    3. n рационалист, человек, действующий по велению разума
    4. a умственный, интеллектуальный; мыслительный
    5. a мыслящий, разумный
    6. a интеллигентный, интеллектуальный

    intellectual occupation — интеллектуальное занятие; интеллигентный труд

    Синонимический ряд:
    1. bookish (adj.) bookish; intelligent; scholarly; studious
    2. cerebral (adj.) cerebral; highbrow; highbrowed; intellectualistic
    3. mental (adj.) intellective; mental; psychic; psychical; psychological
    4. smart (adj.) abstract; brainy; high-brow; rational; smart
    5. sophisticated (adj.) sophisticated; thoughtful
    6. academic (noun) academic; genius; scholar; thinker
    7. brain (noun) Brahmin; brain; double-dome; egghead; highbrow; high-brow; professor
    8. mind (noun) intellect; intelligence; mind
    Антонимический ряд:
    dull; fatuous; fool; foolish; idiot; ignorant; illiterate; inane; irrational; physical; sensual; silly; simple; stupid; thoughtless; unlearned

    English-Russian base dictionary > intellectual

  • 19 uneducated

    a необразованный, неучёный
    Синонимический ряд:
    ignorant (adj.) dark; ignorant; illiterate; in the dark; uncultivated; unenlightened; uninformed; uninstructed; unlearned; unlettered; unschooled; untaught; untutored

    English-Russian base dictionary > uneducated

  • 20 unlettered

    1. a неграмотный, необразованный
    2. a без надписи, ненадписанный
    Синонимический ряд:
    ignorant (adj.) benighted; dark; empty-headed; ignorant; illiterate; in the dark; know-nothing; rude; uneducated; unenlightened; uninstructed; unread; unschooled; untaught; untutored

    English-Russian base dictionary > unlettered

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