Flight of the Portuguese royal family, from Lisbon to Brazil, 29 November 1807 before Napoleonic forces invaded a few days later. The event marked the start of the Peninsular War.
Illustration William by Heysham Overend (1851-1898) from a history of England published in 1906. Info from wiki: The transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil occurred with the escape of Queen Maria I of Portugal, the Braganza royal family and its court of nearly 15,000 people from Lisbon on November 29, 1807. The Braganza royal family departed for the Portuguese colony of Brazil just days before Napoleonic forces invaded Lisbon on December 1. The Portuguese crown remained in Brazil from 1808 until the Liberal Revolution of 1820 led to the return of John VI of Portugal on April 26, 1821.[1]:321 For thirteen years, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, functioned as the capital of the Kingdom of Portugal in what some historians call a "metropolitan reversal", , a colony exercising governance over the entirety of the (in this case Portuguese) empire. The transfer of the king and the royal court "represented the first step toward Brazilian independence, since the king immediately opened the ports of Brazil to foreign shipping and turned the colonial capital into the seat of government
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Photo credit: © Historical Images Archive / Alamy / Afripics
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