Human-cost band
four dead from residual regime fire; a famously low-blood seizure that ended a dictatorship and a colonial war
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Scale16
Intensity12
Duration15
Tech shift10
Political impact58
Cultural memory48
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Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Are the scores a ranking of nations or armies?
No. Scores are browsing aids inside an era-bounded atlas — not live league tables of countries.
How many died on the day?
Four people, killed by regime police fire. The colonial wars before and the Angolan war after have much larger ledgers.
Why did officers move?
They could not win or end the African wars inside the Estado Novo's politics. The MFA was a captains' revolt against a war and a closed regime.
Who led it?
The MFA was collective; Otelo planned operations; Spinola received the surrender and briefly headed the junta -- then fell out with the leftward process.
What happened to the colonies?
Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Angola became independent in 1974-75. Angola collapsed into a long internationalised war. Hundreds of thousands of retornados came to Portugal.
Was it a left-wing coup?
It opened a left-revolutionary period (PREC) and then a pluralist constitution. Reducing 25 April to one ideology misses the captains' war-weariness.
Four dead in Lisbon on 25 April. Thousands dead in the colonial wars before. Angola's post-1975 war dwarfs the Lisbon day. Retornados' lost property is a social cost.
Do not let flowers erase Guinea.
Bands
Dated span (25 April 1974 (coup day; PREC to 1976 constitution))
Carnation Revolution is taught as 25 April 1974 (coup day; PREC to 1976 constitution). 1961-74 and 1976 are the usual poles.
Theatre (Lisbon and Portuguese armed forces; aft.)
Lisbon and Portuguese armed forces; aftershocks in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau is the geography of the ledger -- cities, seas, plants, or ministries as the file requires.
Radio signal / units move
1974-04-25-am: Grandola; Lisbon secured.
Independences
1975: Angola, Mozambique -- and Angola's war.
Regions
Lisbon and Portuguese armed forces
Core theatre of Carnation Revolution (25 April 1974 (coup day; PREC to 1976 constitution)). Portugal and the Future -- public crack.
Late empire war
1961-74: Three African fronts.
PREC / decolonisation
1974-75: Revolution at home; independences abroad.
Democracy
1976-: Constitution; later EU Portugal.
US / UK / AU / CA classrooms
English hours on Carnation Revolution (25 April 1974 (coup day; PREC to 1976 constitution)) are thin beside Chile 1973 film and a paragraph on Lisbon 1974; Seoul 1979 is thinner still.
Korean comparative reader
Carnation Revolution is a comparative officers' file beside 12 December 1979 -- three morals, no method.
Key numbers
Span25 April 1974 (coup day; PREC to 1976 c.
Cost bandfour dead from residual regime fire; a .
TheatreLisbon and Portuguese armed forces; aft.
Hero articleCarnation Revolution
Makers
Marcelo Caetano
Marcelo Caetano (Dictator (late Estado Novo)) is a named maker of the Carnation Revolution story. Salazar's successor; surrendered at Carmo. Died in Brazilian exile.
Antonio de Spinola
Antonio de Spinola (Junta president (briefly)) is a named maker of the Carnation Revolution story. The general of the book and the Carmo surrender; not the MFA's left, and soon out.
Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho
Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho (MFA operations) is a named maker of the Carnation Revolution story. Planned the Lisbon movements; later a controversial PREC figure and a 1980s trial -- a long afterlife.
Salgueiro Maia
Salgueiro Maia (Captain on the ground) is a named maker of the Carnation Revolution story. The televised young officer of Carmo -- a popular face of the captains.
Antonio de Oliveira Salazar
Antonio de Oliveira Salazar (Regime founder) is a named maker of the Carnation Revolution story. Dead in 1970; his system lasted until the captains. The ghost of the Estado Novo.
Vasco Goncalves
Vasco Goncalves (PREC prime minister) is a named maker of the Carnation Revolution story. The MFA left's civilian-military face in 1974-75 -- admired and feared.
A gentle metropole coup can sit on a brutal colonial ledger. That is the honest sentence.
Portugal's later prosperity does not refund African dead.