History of Portugal (1834–1910)
Militant Republicans and their allies in the Carbonária were not willing to remain in the shadows of the constitutional monarchy. Between 4–5 October 1910, members of the Carbonária, republican youth, and elements of the army instigated a coup d'état against the already weak constitutional monarchy. The young king and his family, after a few miscues, escaped from the Palace in Mafra to exile in England. On the morning of 5 October 1910, the Republic was declared from the balcony of Lisbon City Hall, ending eight centuries of monarchy in Portugal.
History of Portugal
With the 1975–76 independence of its colonies (apart from Macau), the 560-year-old Portuguese Empire effectively ended. Simultaneously, 15 years of war effort also came to an end; many Portuguese returned from the colonies (the "retornados") and came to comprise a sizeable proportion of the population: approximately 580,000 of Portugal's 9.8 million citizens in 1981. This opened new paths for the country's future just as others closed. In 1986, Portugal entered the European Economic Community and left the European Free Trade Association which had been founded by Portugal and its partners in 1960. The country joined the euro in 1999. The Portuguese Empire ended "de facto" in 1999 when Macau was returned to China, and "de jure" in 2002 when East Timor became independent.