05/10/2026
Today, Portugal celebrates the day it stopped having a king 🇵🇹
On October 5th, 1910, a republican revolution brought centuries of Portuguese monarchy to an end. King Manuel II, the country’s last king, left Portugal, and the Republic was proclaimed in Lisbon.
The change also gave Portugal some of the national symbols we still recognise today: the green and red flag replaced the monarchy’s blue and white one, and "A Portuguesa" became the national anthem.
And the building you see here? That’s the Palácio de São Bento, home of the Assembleia da República, the Portuguese Parliament. Following the revolution, Portugal elected a Constituent Assembly in 1911 to create the country’s first republican Constitution, an important step in building the new political system.
October 5th is now a national holiday known as "Implantação da República", a date that marks one of the biggest political turning points in modern Portuguese history.
So if you noticed Lisbon moving a little slower today, now you know why 😁