Portugal, 1975 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
On 11 March 1975 the former president Antonio de Spinola and allied right-wing officers attempted a coup to halt the leftward march of the Portuguese revolution, months after Spinola had resigned the presidency following his failed silent majority bid. Paratroopers from the Tancos air base moved against the leftist First Light Artillery Regiment in Lisbon, a stronghold of the radical Armed Forces Movement, in an operation meant to break the power of the revolutionary left. But the coup was a fiasco.
The Tancos troops, discovering they were being used against fellow soldiers, mutinied; workers and loyal units surrounded the attackers, and the rising collapsed within hours. Spinola fled the country, first to Spain and then to Brazil. Far from turning back the revolution, the failed coup radicalized it further: the Armed Forces Movement dissolved existing structures, set up a Supreme Revolutionary Council with sweeping powers, and launched a wave of nationalizations of banks and major industries, deepening the leftist Ongoing Revolutionary Process of 1975.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
23503111975- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-235-1975-03-11
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: The revolutionary government crushed Spinola's March 1975 coup; Spinola fled and the revolution radicalized.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Luttwak
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →