Alex Fernandes gives an evocative account of the events leading to the fall of Portugal’s madcap democratic coup in its 50^th Anniversary in The Carnal Revolution. On 25 April 1974, Lisbon, over the course of a single day, Europe’s oldest fascist regime falls.  When the Galeto snack bar in Lisbon opened in 1966 it became an institution for Lisboans, as it offered sandwiches rather than bacalhau as customers sat along the counter rather than fussy small tables. On 24, April 1974, at five minutes to eleven, a Lisbon radio station broadcasts Portugal’s Eurovision entry. By 6:20pm the next day, Europe’s oldest regime has fallen without even a shot being fired. As citizens pour into the streets, they offer carnations to the revolutionary soldiers after the militar coup that overthrew the decrepit Estado Novo – the New State. Two young army officers at the Galeto snack bar to discuss what should be done. One was trying to recruit the other to “the Movement of Captains”, a conspiracy of young officers disgruntled with the old regime and the conduct of the brutal colonial war in Africa. “To Angola, and in force”, the aged dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar told the Portuguese public in 1961 as he sent soldiers there to defend the Portuguese empire. But the African War simply spread, first to Portuguese Guinea in 1962, then Mozambique in 1964. Almost 10, 000 Portuguese soldiers lost their lives, the number of dead on the African side is estimated to be close to 100, 000 including victims of massacres as Wiriyamu in Mozambique, where in just one day in December 1972, Portuguese commandos killed hundreds of villagers accused of hiding enemy guerrillas. The signal for revolution was a song broadcast over the radio. The revolutionaries debated which to pick, as if it were a high-school ball, before settling on E depois do adeus, Portugual’s entry for the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest ( it came joint bottom, losing to Abbas’s Waterloo).

In the early hours of the next morning Captain Salgueiro Maia led a convoy of armoured vehicles out of the military base at Santarem, 80km from Lisbon, many of the weapons his rebels carried had no bullets in them. When the convoy arrived at the outskirts of the capital at sunrise, Maia’s Jeep suddenly came to halt. The convoy passed a cleaning lady who had bunch of carnations that she had planned to give out as presents to people visiting the restaurant she worked at at. She gave one to a soldier, who slid it into the barrel of his rifle. Other soldiers asked her for flowers too. Soon the crowd watching the convoy’s progress had grabbed more from the flower market to give out – and rest is history. By the time the flower-decked convoy reached the ministries in Praca do Comercio, it had become obvious that the government forces would offer no resistance.

For the first time in forty-eight years, Portugal is free.

The Carnation Revolution winds through the streets of Lisbon as the revolution unfolds, revealing the myriad acts of ordinary and extraordinary resistance that made 25 April possible. It’s the story of daring escapes from five-storey prisons, soldiers disobeying their officers’ orders and simple acts of courage by thousands of citizens. It’s the story of how a group of young captains felled a globe-spanning empire.

 “I feel like I’ve been waiting three decades for precisely this

The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal’s Dictatorship by Alex Fernandes   379 pages £22.