#583 Portugal...Thanks Andre!

These 2 stamps were issued in 2010 commemorating 200 years of the Peninsular War.

The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807 and then in 1808 turned on its ally, Spain. The war lasted until the Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon in 1814.

Spain's liberation struggle marked one of the first national wars and the emergence of large-scale guerrillas (Guerrilha, in Portuguese), from which the English language borrowed the word. The French occupation destroyed the Spanish administration, which fragmented into quarrelling provincial juntas. In 1810, a reconstituted national government fortified itself in Cádiz and proved unable to recruit, train, or equip effective armies due to being under siege. British and Portuguese forces secured Portugal, using it as a secure position from which to launch campaigns against the French army while Spanish guerrilleros bled the occupiers. Combined, the regular and irregular allied forces prevented Napoleon's marshals from subduing the rebellious Spanish provinces.

The many years of fighting in Spain gradually wore down Napoleon's famous French Army. While the French armies were often victorious in battle, their communications and supplies were severely tested and their units frequently cut off, harassed, or overwhelmed by partisans. The Spanish army, though beaten and driven to the peripheries, could not be stamped out and continued to hound the French relentlessly.

The constant threatening presence of a British force under Arthur Wellesley, which became the most experienced and steady force in the British army, guarded Portugal and campaigned against the French in Spain alongside the reformed Portuguese army. Allied to the British, the demoralised Portuguese army underwent extensive reorganising, retraining and refitting under the command of British General William Carr Beresford, appointed commander-in-chief of the Portuguese forces by the exiled Portuguese Royal family, and fought as part of a combined Anglo-Portuguese army under Wellington.

In 1812, as Napoleon embarked upon an invasion of Russia which ended in disaster, a combined allied army under Arthur Wellesley pushed into Spain and liberated Madrid. Marshal Soult led the exhausted and demoralized French forces in a fighting withdrawal across the Pyrenees and into France over the winter of 1813-14.

War and revolution against Napoleon's occupation led to the Spanish Constitution of 1812, later a cornerstone of European liberalism. The burden of war destroyed the social and economic fabric of Portugal and Spain and ushered in an era of social turbulence, political instability, and economic stagnation. Devastating civil wars between liberal and absolutist factions, led by officers trained in the Peninsular War, persisted in Iberia until 1850. The cumulative crises and disruptions of invasion, revolution, and restoration led to the independence of many of Spain's American colonies and the independence of Brazil from Portugal.

#581 Portugal...Thanks Samuel!

The 0.47€ and 0.32€ stamps were issued in 2010 celebrating Centenary of the Republic of Portugal.

The revolution of 1910 was a republican coup d'état that occurred in Portugal on 5 October 1910, which deposed King Manuel II and established the Portuguese First Republic.

Prior to the coup, Prime Minister João Franco stepped down and went into exile. New elections were held, but factionalism prevented the formation of a stable government. On 1 October 1910, a visit by president Hermes da Fonseca of Brazil provided a pretext for extensive republican demonstrations. On 3 October the Army refused to put down a mutiny on Portuguese warships anchored in the estuary of the Tagus River, and instead took up positions around Lisbon. On 4 October, two of the warships began to shell the royal palace, causing Manuel II and the royal family to flee to Britain. On 5 October, a provisional republican government was organized with the writer Teófilo Braga as President.

The revolution and the republic which it spawned were anticlerical and had a "hostile" approach to the issue of church and state separation, like that of the French Revolution, the Spanish Constitution of 1931 and the Mexican Constitution of 1917. As part of the anticlerical revolution, the bishops were driven from their dioceses, the property of clerics was seized by the state, wearing of the cassock was banned, all minor seminaries were closed and all but five major seminaries. A law of 22 February 1918 permitted only two seminaries in the country, but they had not been given their property back. Religious orders were expelled from the country, including 31 orders comprising members in 164 houses (in 1917 some orders were permitted to form again). Religious education was prohibited in both primary and secondary school.

The involvement of mutinous warships in the revolution prefigured a similar involvement in both the October Revolution in 1917 Russia and the fall of the German Monarchy in 1918.

#548 Portugal...Thanks Luis!

The 0.68€ stamp on the left is from 2010 Public Elevators of Portugal issue depicting "Santuario do Bom Jesus do Monte" Elevator in Braga.

The city is also known as the "Portuguese Rome" for its concentration of religious architecture. Braga is located in the North of Portugal, the more developed territory. This town is the commercial and business center of the region.

In Portugal, Braga's population is considered the most conservative, and by some the most pious, by others the most fanatic. The city is one of the most beautiful cities in Portugal.

Not far from the city center there are three important sanctuaries: "Bom Jesus","Sameiro" and "Santa Marta da Falperra".

The 0.32€ stamp is from 2010 Circus Chapito issue. I found some information here.(in Portugese)

The se-tenant stamps on the right was issued in 2010 celebrating 50 years of Hydrographic Institute.

#461 Portugal...Thanks Luis!

The 0.80€ stamp was issued in October,2010 commemorating 100 years of the First Republic of Portugal.

On 1 February 1908, the king Carlos I of Portugal and his heir apparent, Prince Luis Filipe, were murdered in Lisbon. Under his rule, Portugal was twice declared bankrupt - on 14 June 1892, and again on 10 May 1902 - causing social turmoil, economic disturbances, protests, revolts and criticism of the monarchy. Manuel II of Portugal become the new king, but was eventually overthrown by the 5 October 1910 revolution, which abolished the regime and instated republicanism in Portugal.

The new regime formed a provisional government under the presidency of Teófilo Braga, a well-known writer. A new electoral law was issued giving the vote only to a restricted number of adult males. The provisional government presided over the election of a constituent assembly, which opened on June 19, 1911. The constitution was passed by the assembly on August 20, and the provisional government surrendered its authority a few days later (August 24) to the new president, Manuel José de Arriaga. Despite initial hopes that the republic would solve the massive problems inherited from the monarchy, Portugal soon became western Europe's most turbulent, unstable parliamentary regime.

Although a monarchist invasion led by Henrique de Paiva Couceiro in October 1911 was unsuccessful, the main danger to the new regime came from its internal divisions. For the moment, it was fairly united in support of abolishing the monarchy and disestablishing the Roman Catholic Church. The religious orders were expelled (October 8, 1910) and their property confiscated. New legislation banned the teaching of religion in schools and universities and annulled many religious holidays. Persecution of Catholics in the early years of the republic attracted international attention and brought the new political system into conflict with foreign diplomats, humanitarian organizations, and journalists. Indeed, though the government initiated advances in education, health, civic freedoms, and colonial development, positive results were overwhelmed by administrative instability, labour unrest, public violence, and military intervention in politics.

By 1912 the republicans were divided into Evolutionists (moderates), led by António José de Almeida; Unionists (centre party), led by Manuel de Brito Camacho; and Democrats (the leftist core of the original party), led by Afonso Costa. A number of prominent republicans had no specific party. The whirligig of republican political life offered little improvement on the monarchist regime, and in 1915 the army showed signs of restlessness. General Pimenta de Castro formed a military government and permitted the monarchists to reorganize, but a Democratic coup in May led to his arrest and consignment to the Azores, along with Machado Santos. Dominated by Costa's oratory, partisan press, and political machine, the Democrats' regime was in turn overthrown by another bloody military coup (December 1917), led by the former minister to Germany, Major Sidónio Pais.

The authoritarian, unstable “New Republic” of charismatic President Pais failed to pacify the feuding factions, and its collapse precipitated a brief civil war. Following Pais's assassination in Lisbon (December 14, 1918), republicans and monarchists fought a civil war (January 1919) in which the final armed effort to restore the monarchy failed, and political power was restored to the chastened Democrats. Four key tensions characterized the republic's troubled political system: (1) excessive factionalism, (2) the tendency of the factions to bear allegiance to personalities rather than to ideas, institutions, and the public interest, (3) disparity between the landholding patterns of the north (typified by minifundias—small subsistence farms) and the south (typified by latifundias—large estates worked by landless peasants), and (4) the concentration of economic development in Lisbon, at the expense of the provinces.

Though officially neutral, Portugal at the outbreak of World War I had proclaimed its adhesion to the English alliance (August 7, 1914) and on November 23 committed itself to military operations against Germany. On September 11 the first expedition left to reinforce the African colonies, and there was fighting in northern Mozambique, on the Tanganyika (now Tanzania) frontier, and in southern Angola, on the frontier of German South West Africa. In February 1916, in compliance with a request from Britain, Portugal seized German ships lying in Portuguese ports, and on March 9 Germany declared war on Portugal. A Portuguese expeditionary force under General Fernando Tamagnini de Abreu went to Flanders in 1917, and on April 9, 1918, the Germans mounted a major attack in the Battle of the Lys. Although the Allies won the war and Portugal's colonies were safeguarded, the 0.75 percent of the war indemnity paid by Germany to Portugal was scant compensation for the heavy costs incurred both in the field and at home, including the casualties of the African campaigns and the Western Front, the alienation of a portion of the army officer corps, crippling war debts to Britain, intense inflation, and a scarcity of food and fuel.

Former Evolutionist Almeida became the only president to complete his term during the First Republic, but the cycles of bankruptcy, corruption, public violence, and military insurrectionism continued. Finally, on May 28, 1926, the parliamentary republic was overthrown in a bloodless military coup that instituted what was to become western Europe's most long-lived authoritarian system.

#440 Portugal...Thanks Nuno!

#370 Portugal...Thanks Viriato!

The 0.32€ stamp in the middle was issued in 2009 commemorating 800 years of Franciscaner Order,which has the same subject in this previous post.

The 0.32€ stamp on the right is from 2010 Traditional Bread issue.

#312 Portugal...Thanks Jose!

The 0.01€ stamp on the left is from 2010 Third group of Public City Transport series showing Articulated Bus.

The 0.68€ stamp is Açores' issue of Europa 2010:Children's Book.

The 0.10€ stamp is from 2006 Mask issue illustrating the mask used in Carnival in Lazarim,one of Portugal’s Pagan Pageants.

In the 15th century, Portugal navigated its way to the earth’s far corners, bringing language, architecture, music, and the Christian calendar. Brazil, their largest colony, grew with the West African slave trade. Paradoxically, Portugal having introduced Christianity and the customs related to Catholic practice to Brazil, has started to adopt some of the aspects of Brazilian-style Carnival celebrations, in particular those of Rio de Janeiro with sumptuous parades, Samba and other Brazilian musical elements.

#176 Portugal...Thanks Nuno!

The 0.30c stamp is from 2007 Flags of Portugal issue showing flag of Azores,which is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal.

The Azores is a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, about 1,500 km (930 mi) from Lisbon and about 3,900 km (2,400 mi) from the east coast of North America.

The name of the archipelago comes from the Portuguese word açor, meaning goshawk, because it was supposed to be a common bird at the time of the discovery. However these birds never existed on the islands, they actually were a local subspecies of the buzzard (Buteo buteo), that was erroneously identified as goshawks by the first explorers. The eagle on the flag is intended to be the celebration of that historical mistake. The nine stars stand for the nine islands of the archipelago, while the Portuguese lesser arms are present in the top left corner of the flag.

Blue and white have always been the traditional colours of the Portuguese Nation, first present in the coat of arms of Henry, Count of Portugal. During the height of the Portuguese Civil War, in the early 19th century, the Azores served as an important Liberal stronghold, with the prominent Duke of Terceira struggling against the absolutists led by Dom Miguel. The colours of the flag were thus adopted from the Portuguese liberal flag, as to demonstrate the Azores' important role in the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in Portugal.

It should be relevant to remark that the current flag of the Azores was mostly based on the flag first employed by the Azores Liberation Front, a right-wing independentist movement which appeared after the Carnation Revolution, out of the fear of Portugal becoming a Soviet puppet-state. According to the organisation, blue and white stood for Portuguese classical liberalism, as opposed to the "totalitarian socialist forces" that would dominate the country in the mid-70's.

The 0.47c stamp is from 2009 School Post issue.

#084 Portugal...Thanks Nuno!

The stamp is from 2009 Portugal-Iran joint issue depicting a White-tailed Eagle.

The White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), also known as the Sea Eagle, is the fourth largest eagle in the World.This large eagle breeds in northern Europe and northern Asia. The largest population in Europe is found along the coast of Norway.It is considered a close cousin of the Bald Eagle.