 The famine in the nation worsened and struck when World War II was happening outside the Portuguese Empire between 1941 and 1942 and a second one from 1946 to 1948, it led to emigration of tens of thousands to Europe, some left to Senegal and São Tomé and Príncipe.Espargos in the middle of the island was founded in the mid 20th century, it was founded in the late 1940s as an airport town, the last in the Portuguese era, in 1950, a number of flights rose, first Alitalia, then the Portuguese-Brazilian Friendship flight and South Africa Airways (SAA) in 1967 with the flights in London, the airline had to use the airport due to the international boycott of "apartheid" at the time.The last eruption in the colonial era was at Pico do Fogo in 1951 and was a small one.