Junior military officers launched a coup before dawn on April 25, 1974, seizing key sites in Lisbon and ending 48 years of authoritarian rule under the Estado Novo regime. Civilians flooded the streets in celebration, tucking red carnations into soldiers' rifles, giving the uprising its enduring name: the Carnation Revolution.
The coup was orchestrated by the Armed Forces Movement, a group of mid-ranking officers exhausted by Portugal's costly and unwinnable colonial wars in Africa, which had dragged on for over a decade and drained the country's resources and morale. Troops moved on radio stations, government buildings, and military barracks with remarkably little bloodshed, catching the regime almost entirely off guard.
A local radio station's broadcast of the previously banned protest song 'Grândola, Vila Morena' served as the coded signal for units to begin the uprising. By the day's end, dictator Marcelo Caetano had surrendered power, and jubilant crowds filled Lisbon's streets, placing carnations, then in seasonal bloom and sold cheaply at a nearby market, into the barrels of soldiers' guns and pinning them to their uniforms.
The revolution triggered a chaotic but ultimately successful transition to democracy and precipitated the rapid decolonization of Portugal's African territories, including Angola and Mozambique, within the following year. April 25 remains Portugal's national Freedom Day.
Key people: Marcelo Caetano, Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho