Abstract
Lisbon is located where the mouth of the Tagus River flows into the Atlantic Ocean. According to legend, Odysseus, or Ulisses in Portuguese, also sailed into the wide delta.
As a kind of pseudo-evidence, the adjective "ulissiponense", i.e. "Lisbon", is still used today. Three thousand years ago, the Phoenicians1 settled in the westernmost European capital, followed by other peoples such as the Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, and from the 8th century onwards, the Arabs.
In 1147, the first King of Portugal, Alfonso, defeated them and established the borders of Portugal, which are held by the Spanish mountains on one side and the ocean on the other, which have not changed much to this day. Lisbon became a metropolis one hundred years later.
From the 15th century, caravels sailed from it to almost the whole world, followed by adventurers, merchants, soldiers, clergy and simple farmers who moved to one of the Lusophone colonies voluntarily or as a punishment in the form of exile. In addition to the coronation of kings and the proclamation of the republic, the Carnation Revolution, a military coup, took place in Lisbon, which in 1974 started the process of democratization of the country, decolonization and also the gradual integration of Portugal into European economic and political structures.
The postmodern novel The Return of the Caravels (As Naus 1988) by the contemporary Portuguese author António Lobo Antunes deals with the period immediately after the revolution in this city.