A Portal to Portugal Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo's feats on the football field have made him one of the world's most marketable athletes and the first footballer to have career earnings exceed one billion dollars.

He started his senior career with Sporting CP and then made his international debut for Portugal as an 18 year old. That same year he signed to the UK Premier League club, Manchester United and tasted immediate success, assisting the team toward winning the FA Cup in his first year. He moved to Real Madrid in 2009 for, what was at the time, a world record transfer fee.

In a career that has seen him make in excess of 1,000 on-field appearances at the highest level, his list of achievements is extraordinary. Suffice to say, he won the Ballon D'Or on five occasions and secured the European Golden Boot award four times. His trophy shelf is burgeoned with more than 30 titles and, among those, are seven League titles and five Champions League victories. He has scored in excess of 100 goals at the international level and became the first footballer to score a goal in five FIFA World Cup tournaments.

Answer: Carolina Beatriz Angelo

Carolina Beatriz Angelo was a physician, a feminist and an activist. Born in 1878, she lived during a period where the Portuguese government maintained a systematic oppression of women. In 1902 she completed her degree in gynaecology and became the first female to practice medicine at the Sao Jose Hospital in Lisbon.

As noted above, in 1911 she became the first woman to vote in Portugal despite it not being legal for women to do so. Carolina found a loophole. As a widow, she was the head of the family and she could read and these facts gave her all the requirements to vote. When taken to court she pointed out that the law did not specify gender and the courts agreed. However, the backlash was severe and, within two years, those laws were changed to remove the loophole.

This only pushed Carolina to work harder. She became a voice for feminism and the emancipation of women in her country. She founded the Republican League of Portuguese Women, assisted the setting up of the Association of Feminist Propaganda, directed the creation of a school for nurses, defended divorce, campaigned for stronger education facilities for children and led the crusade for equal pay for women.

Sadly, this formidable woman died young, collapsing in her home in 1911 at the tender age of 33 years. In 2012 the Beatriz Angelo hospital, the first in the country to bear a woman's name that wasn't a saint, was dedicated in her honour.

Answer: Bartolomeu Dias

Not a great deal has been recorded about Dias' early or later life, which is a shame. However, it was his efforts and his 1487 expedition around the southern cape of the African continent that will forever etch his name in the history books. Why? Because he showed that a sea route to the highly profitable Indian spice markets was possible.

As stated, this journey would take him around the southern tip of Africa, an area that was considered treacherous and foolhardy by sailors. He would eventually reach Algoa Bay on the eastern shores of South Africa. He was desperately keen to push on from this point and make his way to India but, by this time, his supplies were critically low and the moral of his men matched that shortage. On the return journey he was able to clearly identify where the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans met, which would prove to be valuable data to those that followed. He named the southern tip of Africa the Cape of Storms. This would later be changed by King John II to the Cape of Good Hope as a means of encouraging further exploration of the area. Ironically, Dias would try again but, on this occasion the storms would sink his boat (and two others) and he would lose his life on the route he pioneered. Sadly, he never got to realize his dream to see India.

Answer: Ferdinand Pessoa

Pessoa is considered a genius in his home country and was treated in such high regard that he was buried alongside other national treasures such as Vasco da Gama and Alexandre Herculano (sadly omitted from this quiz as there was a surfeit of writers to choose from). Pessoa was born in Lisbon in 1888 but moved to South Africa seven years later when his step-father was transferred there as the Portuguese consul in Durban. At an early age he showed his potential winning several writing competitions while at school.

He would devote his life to writing under the various pseudonyms, that he labelled heteronyms, and creating works that included poetry and both literary and philosophical essays, all the while supporting himself as a translator of business correspondence. The main reasons for the various names was to provide himself with various voice options and the ability to write in various genres without them impact or detracting from one another. Also known as a philosopher, his magnum opus was "The Book of Disquiet", which was published in 1982, almost 50 years after his death. In here he declares that he has discovered his own identity and that he doesn't exist. "I'm beginning to know myself. I don't exist", the irony in that statement is that his surname (Pessoa) is the Portuguese word for person.

Answer: Eusebio

Blessed with great speed and athleticism, a polished technique and a powerful right foot, it is little wonder that Eusebio has been christened the "Black Panther" and one of the finest players to ever grace the game. Despite the acclaim, the man was also loyal, and devoted most of his career to his beloved Benfica, with whom he scored 473 goals in 440 games.

In 1965 he won the Ballon D'or and, the following year, he would be the leading goalscorer at the FIFA World Cup tournament. In retirement he became a strong ambassador for the game and was named Portugal's "Golden Player of the Past Fifty Years" as part of UEFA's (Union of European Football Associations) Jubilee celebrations in 2003.

Answer: Jose Saramago

In 2003 Harold Bloom, the notable US literary critic labelled Jose Saramago as "the most gifted novelist alive in the world today". Sadly for Saramago, he had to leave the country of his birth to gain that recognition.

Born in 1922, Saramago began his career as a mechanic and a metalworker before gaining employment as a journalist. He published his first work, "Terra do Pecado" (Land of Sin), in 1947 but it wasn't until he was almost 60, when he published "Memorial do Convento" (Baltasar and Blimunda) in 1982 that he'd finally started to garner some recognition. His biggest problems were that he was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party and that the Roman Catholic Church didn't like him and criticized him relentlessly.

When the Portuguese government blocked him from competing for the Aristeion Prize in 1992, because they deemed his work "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ" as offensive he said enough is enough and moved to Spain. He would win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998 and would pass away in 2010. However, such was the change in attitude toward him and his works that on the announcement of his passing, Portugal honoured him with two days of mourning.

Answer: Antonio Guterres

A multi-talented man, Antonio was born in Lisbon in 1949, gained a degree in engineering and became fluent in Portuguese, French, Spanish and English. However, it has been his prowess in diplomatic circles for which he has become renowned.

Guteres was elected to the Portuguese parliament in 1976, serving as the country's Prime Minister (PM) from 1995 to 2002. While Forbes magazine placed him on their list of the most powerful men in the world in 2009, polls conducted in Portugal saw him ranked as the country's greatest PM over the previous three decades. In 2005 Guterres was appointed to the United Nations as High Commissioner for Refugees, a post he held for ten years, heading one of the world's foremost humanitarian organizations during a period of great displacement in the world. This was due largely to conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

The skills garnered here served him well and led to his appointment as Secretary-General of the United Nations in January of 2017. The primary objective of his role centred on the maintenance of human dignity, requiring responses to the COVID pandemic and the global climate crisis.

Answer: Ferdinand Magellan

Magellan is often credited as being the first man to circumnavigate the globe though, technically this is not quite right. He certainly masterminded the journey and travelled with the crew for most of the voyage. A confrontation with the locals in the Philippines escalated and this led to his death. The rest of the trip home was completed by his second in command, Juan Sebastian de Elcano. Magellan's death was the tip of the iceberg here, as this expedition, which left Spain in 1519, extracted a brutal toll. The undertaking left with five ships and 260 men... it returned with only one ship and 18 men, all of whom were in a starved and filthy state.

In the process of the voyage Magellan discovered a pass through the South Americas, a strait that now bears his name, and sailed across the Americas. He would rename this ocean the Pacific because of its peaceful nature. Despite the importance of this discovery, the route that Magellan had discovered to the East Indies would not be used by the Portuguese for many years. This was because the country was in the throes of acquiring great tracts of land in the Americas and they had also found the route around the bottom of Africa to be more expedient at the time.

Answer: Figo

Before Cristiano Ronaldo the darling of Portuguese soccer was Luis Figo. He started his senior career in 1989 with Sporting CP where he was a cult figure on the wing for six years. In 1995 he transferred across to Barcelona FC where he stayed for five years. He would cause a stir by transferring to cross-city rivals, Real Madrid, for what was then, a record fee of 62 million euros.

He would represent his home country in 127 internationals, which remained a record until it was overtaken by Ronaldo, booting 32 goals in the process. He played for Portugal in European Championships, helping them to a second place finish in 2004, and in two World Cups, reaching the semi finals stage in 2006.

Answer: Vasco da Gama

Whilst Bartolomeu Dias found the way, he never did reach India. Taking the lead from Dias who, by the way, helped build da Gama's ship, Vasco did complete the journey to the Asian land, making him the first European to do so by sea. This would help to further open the door to Portugal's imperialism and the establishment of a vast empire from Africa to Asia. The other advantage this gave to his country was that it meant they could avoid the contentious routes through the Mediterranean Sea or, worse, the volatile waters of the Arabian Peninsula.

By opening this route da Gama presented Portugal with unopposed access to the wealth of spices in this area and a virtual monopoly on its markets for almost a century. This was a significant boost to its economy and expansionary visions. For these achievement da Gama was honoured with the title of Governor of India in 1524. Likewise, his name in the history of exploration, would forever be held in the highest regard.

Answer: Natalia Correia

Natalia was born in Sao Miguel, in the Azores in 1923, an autonomous region of Portugal for whom she would write the official lyrics to "Hino dos Acores", its regional anthem. One of Portugal's best known writers, she would begin her career as the author of children's literature, commencing with "The Greatest Adventures of a Small Hero" (1945), graduating to poetry and other fiction. Her anthology of poetry, "Romantic Sonnets" (1991) is considered one of the most remarkable literary works ever published in Portuguese, so much so that it earned her Grand Prize in Poetry from the Portuguese Writers Association.

Never one to shy from controversy, she was jailed for three years for her part in the publication of "Novas Cartas Portuguesas", a 1974 book attributed to the "Three Marias". Whilst Natalia was not one of the authors of the book, considered to be offensive toward the country's traditions, she did have the editorial responsibilities for the project.

In 1974 she found her way into politics, via the Carnation (Bloodless) Revolution and used her influence to be a voice for both Human Rights and Women's Rights. A publisher of numerous works, her profile outside of Portugal is not significant, but her home country holds her dear, presenting her with the Order of Liberty in 1991.

Answer: Luis de Camoes

Not a great deal is known of de Camoes except that he moved a round a lot as a result of his role in the Portuguese army. He lost an eye while serving in Morocco and was then transferred to India, Arabia and East Africa. From there he ended up at Macau, where he began writing "Os Lusiadas" (The Lusiards) in 1568. He would end up being shipwrecked on the Mekong River in Cambodia before finally making his way back to Lisbon in 1570.

On his return he published "Os Lusiadas", an epic poem of 1,102 stanzas that described the discovery of the trade route to India by Vasco da Gama. This is now considered to be Portugal's most important literary work and has seen de Cameos' name spoken of in the same breath as Shakespeare, Homer and Dante.

Answer: Henry the Navigator

There are numerous statutes in Portugal dedicated to Dom Henrique, otherwise known as (Prince) Henry the Navigator. As noted above, he was an important cog during Portugal's "Age of Discovery", but the curious thing is that he never went on a single voyage.

In 1420 Henry was appointed to the role of Administrator General at the Order of Christ. This provided him with access to a great deal of funding which he then utilized to fund exploration ventures. Most of these were to the northern parts of Africa and they led to the discoveries and the colonization of islands such as Madeira, the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands. There were also trips funded to explore the west coast of Africa and these expeditions returned with hauls of slaves and gold. Whilst it hasn't been determined there were tales that he'd also used this funding to establish schools for navigators in Sagres, where he would eventually be laid to rest in 1460.

Answer: Antonio Salazar

Born in 1889, Salazar initially studied in a seminary to be a priest before abandoning the pursuit to study law at the University of Coimbra, where he'd eventually become a Professor of Economics. All of these pursuits would influence his future as Portugal's Prime Minister.

Known as the strongman of Portuguese politics, Salazar immediately sought to reorganize his country's political system on his ascension into power. Influenced by his church teachings, law studies and some nationalistic ideals he created a new regime based on authoritarian lines. He called his new order the Estado Novo or New State and it was characterized by its militaristic oppression and the curtailment of a number of political freedoms. He developed a close friendship with the Spanish leader Ferdinand Franco but was able to retain his country's neutrality during World War II.

After the war he used his economic prowess to invigorate his country by re-equipping the navy and rejuvenating Portugal's road transport and rail systems. However, he did encumber this by trying to doggedly retain their colonies in Africa, which came at great expense. This was during a period when many other nations went through the process of dismantling their holds in that continent.

Opinion on Salazar in Portugal is divided. Whilst some see him as the greatest leader their country has ever had, a similar number see him as nothing more than a dictator enarmoured with ruthlessness.

Answer: Amalia Rodrigues

Born in 1920, Amalia Rodrigues was more than just a great Fado singer. Her fame extended well beyond the borders of Portugal to such an extent that she became one of her country's great ambassadors. At the time of her death in 1999, she was Portugal's biggest selling artist, having recorded 170 albums and sold in excess of 30 million copies across the globe.

Coming from a poor background, she was forced out of school at the age of twelve to assist in the fields. However, by the time she was nineteen, she was noticed by a Fado group, while singing in Lisbon and a new career was forged. Two years later, she was touring Spain and then the countries of South America. By the age of 32 she was the darling of New York, London and Paris. Hollywood came knocking at her door, but she refused to entertain them. Amalia's career stalled after the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 1974. She was falsely accused of being a spy for former dictator Antonio Salazar. Part of this arose because Fado experienced its rise at the same time as Salazar and Amalia did admit to having a bit of a crush on the man and even writing poems about him. She was effectively silenced for eleven years, returning to the stage in 1985 at the urging of Portugal's then President Mario Soares. Her death in 1999 was met with great sadness by the people of Portugal who showed their respect with three days of official mourning.