Kingdom of Portugal
After the Portuguese Restoration War of 1640–1668, the kingdom passed to the House of Braganza and thereafter to the House of Braganza-Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. From this time, the influence of Portugal declined, but it remained a major power due to its most valuable colony, Brazil. After the independence of Brazil, Portugal sought to establish itself in Africa, but was ultimately forced to yield to the British interests, leading to the collapse of the monarchy in the 5 October 1910 revolution and the establishment of the First Portuguese Republic.
Economic history of Portugal
In 1822, Portugal lost its main colony, Brazil. The transition from absolutism to a parliamentary monarchy involved a devastating Civil War from 1828 to 1834. The governments of the Constitutional Monarchy were not able to truly industrialize and modernize the country; by the dawn of the 20th century, Portugal had a GDP per capita of 40% of the Western European average and an illiteracy rate of 74%. Portuguese territorial claims in Africa were challenged during the Scramble for Africa. Political chaos and economic problems endured from the last years of the monarchy to the first Republic of 1910–1926, which led to the installing of a national dictatorship in 1926. While Finance Minister António de Oliveira Salazar managed to discipline the Portuguese public finances, it evolved into a single-party corporative regime in the early 1930s—the "Estado Novo"—whose first three decades were also marked by a relative stagnation and underdevelopment; as such, by 1960 the Portuguese GDP per capita was only 38 percent of the EC-12 average.