tary coup started on April 25, 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, that effectively changed the Portuguese regime from an authoritarian dictatorship to a democracy. Despite repeated appeals from the revolutionaries on the radio inciting the population to stay home, thousands of Portuguese descended on the streets, mixing themselves with the military insurgents. A group of Portuguese officers organised in the Armed Forces Movement rose to overthrow the fascist/authoritarian Estado Novo (New State) regime that had ruled Portugal since the 1920s.
Although the regime's political police, PIDE, killed four people before surrendering, the revolution was unusual in that the revolutionaries did not use direct violence to achieve their goals. The population, holding red carnations (cravos in Portuguese), convinced the regime soldiers not to resist. The red carnation is a symbolic flower for Socialism and Communism, which were the main ideological tendencies of the anti-New State insurgents. The soldiers readily swapped their bullets for flowers. It was the end of the Estado Novo, the longest authoritarian regime in Western Europe, and the final dissolution of the Portuguese Empire. In the aftermath of the revolution a new constitution was drafted, censorship was formally prohibited, free speech declared, political prisoners were released and the Portuguese overseas territories in Sub-Saharan Africa were immediately given their independence.
