Every year on April 25, Portugal celebrates Freedom Day (Dia da Liberdade). In 1974, on this day, the anti-fascist Red Carnation Revolution began in Portugal, ending with the fall of the regime of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, under whose yoke the country had been for more than forty years.
By the way, the rebels did not use violence to come to power, so the revolution is considered bloodless, although it claimed the lives of four people killed by government forces.
The signal for the beginning of the revolution was the broadcast of the song «Grándola, vila morena». After waiting for it to sound, the residents of Lisbon took to the streets with red carnations in their hands and began to disarm the soldiers of the Salazar regime, handing them flowers in exchange for bullets. And they inserted carnations into the barrels of their weapons. The slogans «O Povo unido, jamais será vencido!» thundered over the city (The United People is invincible)...
This was just the beginning, and in the next two years — exactly two years, until April 1976, — carried out state transformations of a liberal democratic nature: the formation of a multi-party system, decolonization in the Portuguese possessions in Africa, the adoption of a democratic Constitution.
Since then, April 25 — Freedom Day — is one of the main public holidays of the Portuguese Republic. It is celebrated noisily and cheerfully, accompanied by various celebrations, festivities, and, of course, bullfighting. And how can you not once again pay attention to the fact that the local bullfight — is bloodless: the Portuguese caballero enters the battle on horseback and, most importantly, never kills a bull!