The first day

The stops

1. 1

   Stop 1: Dawn — the column from Santarém

   Praça do Comércio, 1100-148 Lisboa

   Today: Praça do Comércio

   

   The column from the Cavalry Practical School left Santarém at 03:30, under the command of Captain Salgueiro Maia, and at around six in the morning it occupied this square, the Bank of Portugal and Rádio Marconi — “Toledo, Brussels and Vienna” in the Movement’s code. The first forces sent by the regime placed themselves under the orders of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA).²

   In the ministries around the square, the Army Minister had a hole knocked through a wall into the Navy Ministry with pickaxes, and ministers and military chiefs escaped that way. On the river, at 07:30, the frigate Almirante Gago Coutinho was ordered to take up position opposite the Terreiro do Paço and open fire on the armoured vehicles. It did not fire.⁹

   What you can see today

   One of the plaques of the “Places of April” (Lugares de Abril) project, by Lisbon City Council and the 25 April Association, with a QR code that leads to the story of the place on the day of the revolution.¹⁶¹⁷

   • 25 Apr 1974A coluna de Salgueiro Maia ocupa o Terreiro do Paço
   • 25 Apr 1974Ministros fogem por uma parede aberta à picareta
   • 25 Apr 1974A fragata «Almirante Gago Coutinho» no Tejo
   RTP Arquivos · Video · broadcast on 8 March 1975 · 8 minComemorações do Dia Internacional da Mulher em LisboaOn the first International Women’s Day celebrated in freedom, the Democratic Women’s Movement marches from Restauradores and the Rossio to the Terreiro do Paço and pays tribute to Isabel Aboim Inglez at the São Luiz Theatre. Maria Lamas shows the petition to name a Lisbon square after Aboim Inglez.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 2220 m · 5 min on footDirections

2. 2

   Stop 2: Morning — the soldiers who did not fire

   Rua do Arsenal / Avenida Ribeira das Naus, 1100-038 Lisboa

   

   In mid-morning a force loyal to the regime, with M47 tanks, arrived along the Ribeira das Naus. Salgueiro Maia went to meet it with a white handkerchief in his hand. Brigadier Junqueira dos Reis ordered Officer Cadet Fernando Sottomayor to open fire on him; the cadet refused and was placed under arrest. The same order was given to the tank gunners, and they too refused. “That was where 25 April was won,” Maia would say.⁹

   Shortly afterwards, here on Rua do Arsenal, Lieutenants Alfredo Assunção and Santos Silva tried to negotiate with the brigadier. Exasperated, he punched Lieutenant Assunção three times, and Assunção did not hit back: he saluted him and withdrew.³

   What you can see today

   Rua do Arsenal and Avenida da Ribeira das Naus are among the “Places of April” (Lugares de Abril), the project of Lisbon City Council and the 25 April Association that marks the places of the revolution with plaques, each with a QR code.³¹⁷

   • 25 Apr 1974Ribeira das Naus: os soldados recusam disparar
   • 25 Apr 1974Rua do Arsenal: o brigadeiro agride o tenente Assunção

   «25 de Abril de 1974, Quinta-feira», de Alfredo Cunha — capítulo 2: «Dia 25 de Abril»Comissão Comemorativa 50 Anos 25 de Abril · 25 April 1974 · 13:31

   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 3800 m · 10 min on footDirections

3. 3

   Stop 3: Midday — the city disobeys

   Praça D. Pedro IV, 1100 Lisboa

   Today: Praça D. Pedro IV

   

   The Movement’s communiqués asked the population to stay at home. Lisbon did the opposite and took to the streets.¹² At around midday the armoured vehicles left the Terreiro do Paço for the Carmo; in the Rossio, a company sent to stop them placed itself under the Movement’s orders, and the column climbed the steep streets of the Chiado among thousands of cheering people.⁴

   What you can see today

   One of the “Places of April” (Lugares de Abril) plaques of Lisbon City Council and the 25 April Association, with a QR code, unveiled on 24 March 2024.¹⁷

   • 25 Apr 1974Lisboa desobedece ao MFA e sai à rua
   RTP Arquivos · Video · broadcast on 25 April 1974 · 36 minAcontecimentos da Revolução de 25 de Abril de 1974Footage of the day of the revolution and the early hours of the next: the Palácio da Independência occupied by the Democratic Electoral Commission (CDE), soldiers and civilians in the Rossio, soldiers at the gate of Caxias prison, from which Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho emerges, and Largo do Carmo. It ends with the National Salvation Junta on television.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 4290 m · 5 min on footDirections

4. 4

   Stop 4: Celeste’s carnation

   Rua do Carmo, 1200-093 Lisboa

   Today: Rua do Carmo

   

   Celeste Caeiro worked in a restaurant on Rua Braamcamp that turned one year old that day; it never opened, and the carnations bought for the women customers were given to the women on the staff.¹³ Celeste came down to the Baixa with her bunch of flowers. By the Chaimite armoured cars, a soldier asked her for a cigarette. She did not smoke, and gave him a carnation, which he put in the barrel of his rifle.¹⁴

   Accounts disagree about the exact spot — the start of Rua do Carmo, the corner with Rua Garrett, the Rossio. They agree on the rest: the gesture was repeated across the city and gave the revolution its name.

   • 25 Apr 1974Celeste Caeiro e os cravos

   «Celeste dos Cravos» imortalizada na sua LisboaCâmara Municipal de Lisboa · 25 April 2025 · 01:03

   RTP Arquivos · Audio · broadcast on 23 April 2015 · 16 minEntrevista a Celeste Caeiro, Garcia dos Santos, Carlos Cedoura e Pena MadeiraForty-one years on, Celeste Caeiro recalls her initiative of handing out carnations to the soldiers on 25 April. In the same programme, the military men Garcia dos Santos, Carlos Cedoura and Pena Madeira also speak.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 5290 m · 5 min on footDirections

5. 5

   Stop 5: Afternoon — the siege of the Carmo

   Largo do Carmo, Lisboa

   Today: GNR General Command and the National Republican Guard Museum

   

   Marcelo Caetano had been here since the small hours: at five in the morning the director of the political police had telephoned him — “Mr President, the Revolution is out in the streets!” (Senhor Presidente, a Revolução está na rua!) — and advised him to take refuge in the GNR barracks.⁴ According to Jofre Alves’s chronology, it was Maria de Lurdes Rocha, head of cleaning and laundry at the barracks, who hurriedly made up five rooms for the besieged government.¹⁰

   The column arrived at about 12:30 and surrounded the barracks; the crowd filled the square and the streets around it. At around 14:30, Rádio Clube Português broadcast an MFA communiqué announcing the siege, “now read by a woman”, Clarisse Guerra.⁹ At 15:10 Maia gave ten minutes for the surrender; at 15:25 a Chaimite fired bursts at the top of the façade. At 16:00 an emissary from General Spínola arrived, and Caetano agreed to surrender — “so that power does not fall into the street” (assim o poder não cai na rua) — provided it was to a general officer.⁵

   Spínola entered the barracks late in the afternoon. At 18:30 Salgueiro Maia had the Chaimite “Bula” backed in through the main gate, and it took Caetano and two ministers to the MFA command post at Pontinha.⁹¹¹

   What you can see today

   One of the “Lugares de Abril” (Places of April) plaques, by Lisbon City Council and the 25 April Association, marks the square.⁵

   • 25 Apr 1974Silva Pais avisa Caetano: «a Revolução está na rua»
   • 25 Apr 1974A coluna da EPC sobe ao Carmo e cerca o quartel da GNR
   • 25 Apr 1974Uma voz de mulher lê o comunicado do cerco ao Carmo
   • 25 Apr 1974Ultimato e rajadas contra a fachada do Quartel do Carmo
   • 25 Apr 1974Emissários de Spínola entram no Carmo; Caetano aceita render-se
   • 25 Apr 1974Spínola no Carmo; Caetano sai na chaimite «Bula»

   25 placas que contam a história da RevoluçãoCâmara Municipal de Lisboa · 27 March 2024 · 00:40

   RTP Arquivos · Video · broadcast on 25 April 1974 · 13 minAcontecimentos no Largo do CarmoFialho Gouveia reports from the besieged Largo do Carmo: Lieutenant Alfredo Assunção receives Feytor Pinto and Nuno Távora, the Chaimite armoured car “Bula” arrives, Salgueiro Maia waits for Spínola, and Francisco Sousa Tavares calls for calm through a megaphone. At the end, the Chaimite takes away Marcelo Caetano and two ministers.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 6390 m · 5 min on footDirections

6. 6

   Stop 6: The midnight signal

   Rua Capelo, 5, 2.º, 1200-224 Lisboa

   Today: A hotel, The Ivens

   

   Now we go back in time. Here, on Rua Capelo, stood the studios of Rádio Renascença. It was from here that, at 00:20 on 25 April, the programme Limite broadcast “Grândola, Vila Morena” (Grândola, swarthy town), by José Afonso: the second signal, the one that told the Movement’s units that operations were under way and there was no turning back.⁶

   The song first chosen had been “Venham Mais Cinco” (Let five more come), but it was banned at Renascença; it was the journalist Carlos Albino, one of the makers of Limite, who suggested “Grândola”. The announcer Leite de Vasconcelos recorded a reading of the first verse, which went out before the song, without knowing what it was for.⁷

   • 23 Apr 1974A «Grândola» é escolhida como senha no programa «Limite»
   • 25 Apr 1974«Grândola, Vila Morena» na Rádio Renascença confirma a revolução

   Coro da Casa da Achada e populares cantam «Grândola, Vila Morena» no 25 de Abril de 2023, em LisboaWikimedia Commons · 25 April 2023 · 00:59

   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 7430 m · 5 min on footDirections

7. 7

   Stop 7: Night — the four dead of Rua António Maria Cardoso

   Rua António Maria Cardoso, 22, Lisboa (código postal do troço: 1249-101, segundo o OpenStreetMap)

   Today: Residential apartment complex

   

   Taking the political police headquarters was not part of the MFA’s plan. Throughout the day, the crowd gathered here at the door, demanding surrender. Early in the evening, when Caetano had already surrendered, DGS agents fired from the windows on the people in the street: Fernando Carvalho Giesteira, aged 18, José James Harteley Barneto, 38, João Guilherme Rego Arruda, 20, and Fernando Luís Barreiros dos Reis, 23, were killed. Dozens were wounded, and it was never established who fired.¹²⁸

   The DGS did not surrender until the following morning. On the wall, a plaque remembers the four names; the first was put up in 1980 by a group of citizens.¹⁵

   What you can see today

   A plaque put up by citizens in 1980 reads: “Here, on the afternoon of 25 April 1974, the PIDE opened fire on the people of Lisbon and killed: Fernando C. Gesteira, José J. Barneto, Fernando Barreiros dos Reis, José Guilherme R. Arruda. Tribute from a group of citizens – 25-4-1980”.¹⁵ Removed during the building works for the apartment complex, it was put back in 2009 in an inconspicuous corner. Lisbon City Council put up a plaque in 2010 and, in April 2024, a new one, with a code that leads to the biographies of the four dead on the Aljube Museum website.¹⁸

   • 25 Apr 1974Disparos da PIDE/DGS matam quatro pessoas na Rua António Maria Cardoso
   • 26 Apr 1974Rendição e ocupação da sede da DGS
   RTP Arquivos · Video · broadcast on 26 April 1974 · 2 minPrisão de Agentes da PIDE-DGSThe PIDE/DGS headquarters on Rua António Maria Cardoso, surrounded by soldiers and members of the public. Two agents caught trying to escape are taken by the soldiers to the Carmo Barracks; the item has no sound.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map