This summer and autumn throughout the Republic of Portugal, in every city and little Village, festivities are being planned to commemorate the founding of the Portuguese State in 1140 A. D.—an 800th anniversary celebration. The observance will be known as the Exposition of the Portuguese World, which will set forth, in pageant and dance and patriotic community gatherings, the story of eight centuries. The anniversary of another event important to the Portuguese people will also be commemorated in this exposition—that of the restoration of her independence in 1640, after a 60-year period of Spanish suppression.
Portugal will celebrate wholeheartedly the great days of her history—days when the Moors were driven out; when Prince Henry the Navigator established himself on the southwesternmost point of Europe to study and encourage navigation; when Vasco da Gama, a nobleman, sailed out to find the way to fabulous India; when Magellan was the first to circumnavigate the globe; when Pedro Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal and Albuquerque founded a vast empire.
In this exposition Portugal will celebrate the achievements of all the men who helped to make their native land that nation which Pope Alexander VI had difüculty in persuading to accept only one-half of the newly discovered world. That was in 1493, when he partitioned the non-Christian parts of the globe between Portugal and Castille, These men include sailors and soldiers, friars who spread the Gospel among infidels, and also a great number of kings who realized their amazing ideas of expansion,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.