Operation Historic Turn

On the night of 24 April 1974, at five minutes to eleven, a Lisbon radio station broadcasts Portugal’s Eurovision entry. By 3 p.m. the next day, the government surrenders and a fifty-year fascist regime is overthrown. Hardly a shot has been fired. Carnations decorate the barrels of the revolutionary soldiers’ guns. Portugal is free.

Operation Historic Turn winds through the streets of Lisbon as the revolution unfolds – and reveals the myriad acts of ordinary and extraordinary resistance that made 25 April possible. It’s a story of daring escapes from five-storey prisons, soldiers disobeying their generals’ orders and simple acts of courage by thousands of citizens. Alex Fernandes also guides us through the curious and contested afterlife of the revolution – and the fates of its heroes in modern Portugal.