title: House of Vasa

text: Eric XIV was born at Tre Kronor on 13 December 1533. Before the age of two, he lost his mother. In 1536, his father, Gustav Vasa, married Margaret Leijonhufvud (1516–51), a Swedish noblewoman. He was crowned as Eric XIV, but was not necessarily the 14th king of Sweden named Eric. He and his brother Charles IX (1604–11) adopted regnal numbers according to Johannes Magnus's partly fictitious history of Sweden. There had, however, been at least six earlier Swedish kings with the name of Eric, as well as pretenders about whom very little is known.


title: House of Vasa

text: In domestic politics, Eric's ambitions were strongly opposed by the Swedish nobility, including his half-brother, the later John III of Sweden (1537–92). John was the Duke of Finland and was married to a Polish princess, which made him friendly with Poland. John pursued an expansionist policy in Livonia (now Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) which led to contention between the brothers. In 1563, John was seized and tried for high treason by Eric's order.


title: House of Vasa

text: In the fall of 1568, the dukes and the nobles rebelled, and Eric was dethroned. He was then imprisoned by Duke John, who took power. Eric's most trusted counsellor, Jöran Persson (1530–68), took much of the blame for the actions directed against the nobility during Eric XIV's reign and was executed shortly after John III ascended to the throne.


title: House of Vasa

text: John further initiated peace talks with Denmark and Lübeck to end the Scandinavian Seven Years' War, but rejected the resultingTreaties of Roskilde (1568) where his envoys had accepted far-reaching Danish demands. After two more years of fighting, this war was concluded without many Swedish concessions in the Treaty of Stettin (1570). During the following years he defeated Russia in the Livonian War, and regained Narva by the Treaty of Plussa in 1583. His foreign policy was affected by his connection to Poland; his son Sigismund III Vasa was made king of Poland in 1587.


title: House of Vasa

text: In January 1569, John was recognized as king by the same "riksdag" that forced Eric XIV off the throne. But this recognition was not without influence from John; Duke Karl received confirmation on his dukedom without the restrictions of his power that the Arboga articles imposed. The nobility's power and rights were extended and their responsibilities lessened.


title: House of Vasa

text: John was still concerned about his position as king as long as Eric was alive. In 1571 he ordered Erik's guards to kill him if there was any suspicion of an escape attempt. It is possible this is how Eric died in 1577.


title: House of Vasa

text: Sigismund III Vasa was born when his parents, John III and Catherine Jagiellon, were held prisoner by John's brother King Eric XIV, but John replaced Eric in 1568. Sweden had become Protestant, but young Sigismund was raised Catholic. His Polish connection came through his mother, daughter of Sigismund I the Old, and the Jagiellonian dynasty had ruled


title: House of Vasa

text: Poland and then the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth since 1386. Sigismund was elected King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on 19 August 1587.


title: House of Vasa

text: From that time his official name and title became "Sigismund III, by the grace of God, king of Poland, grand duke of Lithuania, Ruthenia, Prussia, Masovia, Samogitia, Livonia and also hereditary king of the Swedes, Goths and Wends"; after his father died in 1592, he added "hereditary king of the Swedes, Goths, and Vandals".


title: House of Vasa

text: However, as was often the case with the Polish electoral monarchy, the outcome was strongly contested by the "losers" and a faction of the Polish nobility backed Maximilian III, Archduke of Austria. Upon hearing of his election King Sigismund slipped through the clutches of the Protestants in Sweden and landed in Poland on 7 October. He immediately agreed to give up several royal privileges to the "Sejm" (parliament) of the Commonwealth in the hope of winning over some of his enemies and settling the disputed election. Lesser Prussian Treasurer Jan Dulski proclaimed him king on behalf of the Crown Marshal Andrzej Opaliński. On 27 December, he was crowned in Wawel Cathedral in Kraków. It seemed that the issue of who would be King of Poland had been settled when Maximilian III invaded at the head of his army to claim his crown. The hostilities did not last long as Hetman Jan Zamoyski at the head of a Polish army loyal to King Sigismund met and successfully defeated the Austrian troops at the Battle of Byczyna and took Maximilian III as prisoner of war. However, at the request of Pope Sixtus V, King Sigismund III released Maximilian who surrendered his claim to the Polish Commonwealth in 1589. King Sigismund also tried to maintain peace with his powerful neighbor by marrying Archduchess Anna of Austria in 1592. It was always his intention to be allied with Catholic Austria against the Protestant forces that were tearing Christendom apart.


title: House of Vasa

text: After the death of John III of Sweden, his son Sigismund succeeded to the throne of Sweden. Sigismund at that time was already the elected King of Poland (since 1587). Sigismund certainly valued the Swedish throne and upon learning about the death of his father, and the pretensions to the throne of his uncle, Duke Charles of Södermanland, he asked the Sejm (Polish parliament) for permission to leave the Commonwealth and go to Sweden, where he could secure the Swedish crown. The Sejm gave him permission, and on 3 August 1593, Sigismund, accompanied by his wife, Anna of Habsburg, and other followers, departed for Sweden.


title: House of Vasa

text: The agreement of 19 February seemed to have calmed the situation; Sigismund was crowned in Uppsala Cathedral and became the king of Sweden. The Kingdom of Sweden was now in a personal union with Poland-Lithuania. In July, Sigismund left Sweden in the hands of the regency council and returned to Poland. Sweden was to be ruled jointly by the Privy Council of Sweden and Sigismund's uncle Duke Charles.


title: House of Vasa

text: Sigismund, however, reneged on his earlier promises, opening Catholic schools, and giving Catholics prominent posts. Charles in turn did not give up on acquiring the Swedish throne and pursued his own political agenda. The new Riksdag he summoned at Arboga in 1597 – again despite the King's orders – saw few participants, and only one from the Privy Council. Even so, Duke Charles did not achieve support for his military action, but initiated it nonetheless. Parts of southern Sweden were successfully taken. Several of the Privy Council members fled to Poland to convince Sigismund to take counteractions. Sigismund sent a diplomatic mission, in an attempt to solve the conflict by negotiations. Charles at first looked ready to negotiate but in fact he was playing for time, trying to confirm his power at another Riksdag (in Arboga), recruiting peasants for his army, and isolating Sigismund's followers.


title: House of Vasa

text: In 1598, the Sejm gave Sigismund the go-ahead to wage a military campaign against his opponents in Sweden; however it refused to give him significant support. Sigismund's army was composed mostly of mercenaries (Germans and Hungarians), supported by a relatively small Polish force (although with some artillery).


title: House of Vasa

text: Sigismund's campaign was poorly planned. He was unable to coordinate his troop movements with his supporters, particularly Fleming who was supposed to attack Charles from Finland. After initial successes (the taking of Kalmar and defeating Charles' troops at Stegeborg), Sigismund's forces were defeated on September 25, 1598, at the Battle of Stångebro, (also known as the battle of Linköping). Sigismund was captured and forced to hand over some of his followers such as the Chancellor of Sweden, Erik Larsson Sparre, (1550–1600). In May 1599, Charles' forces captured the last fortress held by Sigismund, Kalmar. On July 24, 1599, the Riksdag in Stockholm officially dethroned Sigismund. The new King of Sweden was Charles IX of Sweden, and the Polish–Swedish union was dissolved after barely seven years of existence. In March 1600, some of Sigismund's supporters were executed, including five senators in an event known as the Linköping Bloodbath.


title: House of Vasa

text: The Polish–Muscovite War or the Polish–Russian War (1605–1618), in Poland known as the "Dimitriads", took place in the early 17th century as a sequence of military conflicts and eastward invasions carried out by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, or the private armies and mercenaries led by the magnates (the Commonwealth aristocracy), when the Russian Tsardom was torn by a series of civil wars, the time most commonly referred to in the Russian history as the "Time of Troubles", sparked by the Russian dynastic crisis and overall internal chaos. The sides and their goals changed several times during this conflict: the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was not formally at war with Russia until 1609, and various Russian factions fought amongst themselves, allied with the Commonwealth and other countries or fighting against them. Sweden also participated in the conflict during the course of the Ingrian War (1610–1617), sometimes allying itself with Russia, and other times fighting against it. The aims of the various factions changed frequently as well as the scale of the parties' goals, which ranged from minor border adjustments to imposing the Polish Kings or the Polish-backed impostors' claims to the Russian throne and even the creation of a new state by forming a union between the Commonwealth and Russia.


title: House of Vasa

text: The war can be divided into four stages. In the first stage, certain commonwealth szlachta (nobility), encouraged by some Russian boyars (Russian aristocracy), but without the official consent of the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa, attempted to exploit Russia's weakness and intervene in its civil war by supporting the impostors for the tsardom, False Dmitriy I and later False Dmitriy II, against the crowned tsars, Boris Godunov and Vasili Shuiski. The first wave of the Polish intervention began in 1605 and ended in 1606 with the death of False Dmitri I. The second wave started in 1607 and lasted until 1609, when Tsar Vasili made a military alliance with Sweden. In response to this alliance, the Polish king Sigismund III decided to intervene officially and to declare war upon Russia, aiming to weaken Sweden's ally and to gain territorial concessions.


title: House of Vasa

text: Hetman of the Crown Stanisław Żółkiewski held a triumphal entry by the Kraków suburb of the Royal Palace, leading with him the prisoners: the Russian tsar Wasyl IV Szujski, his brothers: Dimitri Szujski with his wife - Grand Duchess Ekaterina Grigoryevna, daughter Grigory Malyuta Skuratov and Ivan Shuysky Mikhail Shein, and Filaret, the non-canonical Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. After early Commonwealth victories (Battle of Klushino), which culminated in Polish forces entering Moscow in 1610, Sigismund's son, Prince Władysław of Poland, was briefly elected tsar.


title: House of Vasa

text: With the intensification of the Polish intervention in Muscovy, in 1609, the royal family moved to their residence in Vilnius, capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There he witnessed the fire of Vilnius, an event which even required the royal family to evacuate their residence in the Vilnius Castle. Later that year, Władysław, aged 15, was elected Tsar by Muscovy's aristocracy council of "Seven boyars", who overthrew tsar Vasily Shuysky during the Polish-Muscovite War and Muscovy's Time of Troubles. His election was ruined by his father, Sigismund, who aimed to convert Muscovy's population from Orthodox religion to Catholicism. Sigismund refused to agree to the boyar's request to send prince Władysław to Moscow and his conversion to Orthodoxy. Instead, Sigismund proposed that he should reign as a regent in Muscovy instead. This unrealistic proposal led to a resumption of hostilities. Briefly, beginning in 1610, Władysław struck Muscovite silver and gold coins (Kopek) in the Russian mints in Moscow and Novgorod with his titulary Tsar and Grand Prince Vladislav Zigimontovych of all Russia.


title: House of Vasa

text: Władysław tried to regain the tsar's throne himself, organizing a campaign in 1616. Despite some military victories, he was unable to capture Moscow. The Commonwealth gained some disputed territories in the Truce of Deulino, but Władysław was never able to reign in Russia; the throne during this time was instead held by tsar Michael Romanov. He held on to the title, without any real power, until 1634. Likely, the failure of this campaign showed Władysław the limits of royal power in Poland, as major factors for the failure included significant autonomy of the military commanders, which did not see Władysław as their superior, and lack of funds for the army, as the Polish parliament (sejm) refused to subsidize the war.


title: House of Vasa

text: The election sejm of 1632 eventually concluded in the election of Władysław; he had no serious other contenders. The decision on who would be the Commonwealth's next king was reached on 8 November, but as the "pacta conventa" were not yet ready, the official announcement was delayed until 13 November. In the "pacta conventa", Władysław pledged himself to fund a military school and equipment; to find a way to fund a naval fleet; to maintain current alliances; not to raise armies, give offices or military ranks to foreigners, negotiate peace treaties or declare war without the Sejm's approval; not to take a wife without the Senate's approval; to convince his brothers to take an oath to the Commonwealth; and to transfer the profits from the Royal Mint to the Royal Treasury rather than to a private treasury. When the election result had been announced by the Crown Grand Marshal, Łukasz Opaliński, the nobility ("szlachta"), who had taken part in the election, began festivities in honor of the new king, which lasted three hours. Władysław was crowned in the Wawel Cathedral, in Kraków on 6 February in the following year.


title: House of Vasa

text: Władysław IV owed nominal allegiance to the Imperial Habsburgs as a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece. His relationship with the Habsburgs was relatively strong; although he was not above carrying some negotiations with their enemies, like France, he refused Cardinal Richelieu's 1635 proposal of an alliance and a full-out war against them, despite potential lure of territorial gains in Silesia. He realized that such a move would cause much unrest in a heavily Catholic Commonwealth, that he likely lacked the authority and power to push such a change of policy through the Sejm, and that the resulting conflict would be very difficult. From 1636 onward, for the next few years, Władysław strengthened his ties with the Habsburgs.


title: House of Vasa

text: In the meantime, Władysław still tried to take a leading role in European politics, and negotiate a peaceful settlement to the Thirty Years' War, a settlement which he hoped would ease his way into regaining the Swedish crown. Following the armistice of Stuhmsdorf, Władysław came to increasingly realize that his prospects for regaining the Swedish throne were dim. In the years 1636–1638 he proposed several reforms to strengthen his and his dynasty's power in the Commonwealth. His first plan was an attempt to secure a hereditary province within the country, which would not be threatened by the possible power shift following a future royal election; this, however, did not gain sufficient support in the Sejm.


title: House of Vasa

text: Władysław used the title of the King of Sweden although he had no control over Sweden and never set foot in that country.


title: House of Vasa

text: John Casimir for most of his life remained in the shadow of his older half-brother, Władysław IV Vasa. He had few friends among the Polish nobility. Unfriendly, secretive, dividing his time between lavish partying and religious contemplation, and disliking politics, he did not have a strong power base nor influence at the Polish court, instead supporting unfavorable Habsburg policies. He did, however, display talent as a military commander, showing his abilities in the Smolensk War against Muscovy (1633).


title: House of Vasa

text: In 1648 John Casimir was elected by the Polish Parliament to succeed his half-brother on the Polish throne. The reign of the last of the Vasas in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth would be dominated by the Russo-Polish War (1654–67), followed by the war with Sweden ("The Deluge"), the scene for which had been set by the Commonwealth's two previous Vasa kings. Most of Poland was invaded by the Swedish army during the Deluge without much of a fight, due to the conspiratorial complicity of Polish and Lithuanian governors and nobility. In the course of a few years, the Commonwealth rose to force the Swedes out of Poland, ending the short-lived intrusions and campaigns, however, at a high cost. Most of the cities and towns in the Commonwealth were sacked, plundered and some were burnt to the ground, mostly by the retreating enemy units. Although the reign of John Casimir is remembered to be one of the most disastrous and perhaps most unsuccessful in the history of Poland and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, he is often referred to as the "warrior king" that fought bravely to save his nation and his people.


title: House of Vasa

text: In 1660 John II Casimir was forced to renounce his claim to the Swedish throne and acknowledge Swedish sovereignty over Livonia and the city of Riga in modern-day Latvia. John Casimir had married his brother's widow, Marie Louise Gonzaga (Polish: "Maria Ludwika"), who was a major support to the King. Marie Louise suddenly died in 1667 and this may have caused the monarch's early political decline.


title: House of Vasa

text: On 16 September 1668, grief-stricken after the death of his wife in the previous year, John II Casimir abdicated the throne of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and returned to France, where he joined the Jesuits and became abbot of Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris. Following his abdication Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki (Michael I) was elected the new king and was crowned on September 29, 1669. Before his death John Casimir intended to return to Poland, however shortly before the journey in Autumn 1672 he fell dangerously ill to the news of the fall of Kamieniec Podolski, which was seized by the Ottomans. He then turned to Pope Clement X to ask for assistance for the Commonwealth in a defensive war against the Turks. The French, who were secretly in contact with him during his stay in the abbey, were astonished by such a great affection of the king to remember the loss of his kingdom, and so concerned about the loss of only one city. Nevertheless, distressed and seriously ill John II Casimir died shortly after the unexpected Turkish invasion of Poland on December 16, 1672, from apoplexy and was buried inside the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków. His heart was interred in the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.


title: House of Vasa

text: The Riksdag at Linköping, 24 February 1604 declared that Sigismund abdicated the Swedish throne, that duke Charles was recognized as the sovereign. He was declared king as Karl IX (anglicized as Charles IX). Charles's short reign was one of uninterrupted warfare. The hostility of Poland and the breakup of Russia involved him in overseas contests for the possession of Livonia and Ingria, the Polish–Swedish War (1600–1611) and the Ingrian War, while his pretensions to claim Lappland brought upon him a war with Denmark in the last year of his reign.


title: House of Vasa

text: In all these struggles, he was more or less unsuccessful, owing partly to the fact that he and his forces had to oppose superior generals (e.g. Jan Karol Chodkiewicz and Christian IV of Denmark) and partly to sheer ill-luck. Compared with his foreign policy, the domestic policy of Charles IX was comparatively unimportant. It aimed at confirming and supplementing what had already been done during his regency. He did not officially become king until 22 March 1604. The first deed in which the title appears is dated 20 March 1604; but he was not crowned until 15 March 1607.


title: House of Vasa

text: Gustavus Adolphus was born in Stockholm as the oldest son of Duke Charles of the Vasa dynasty and his second wife, Christina of Holstein-Gottorp. At the time, the King of Sweden was Gustavus Adolphus' cousin Sigismund. The staunch Protestant Duke Charles forced the Catholic Sigismund to let go of the throne of Sweden in 1599, a part of the preliminary religious strife before the Thirty Years' War, and reigned as regent before taking the throne as Charles IX of Sweden in 1604. Crown Prince Gustav Adolph had Gagnef-Floda in Dalecarlia as a duchy from 1610. Upon his father's death in October 1611, a sixteen-year-old Gustavus inherited the throne (declared of age and able to reign himself at seventeen as of 16 December), as well as an ongoing succession of occasionally belligerent dynastic disputes with his Polish cousin. Sigismund III wanted to regain the throne of Sweden and tried to force Gustavus Adolphus to renounce the title.


title: House of Vasa

text: In a round of this dynastic dispute, Gustavus invaded Livonia when he was 31, beginning the Polish-Swedish War (1625–1629). He intervened on behalf of the Lutherans in Germany, who opened the gates to their cities to him. His reign became famous from his actions a few years later when in June 1630 he landed in Germany, marking the Swedish Intervention in the Thirty Years' War. Gustavus intervened on the anti-Imperial side, which at the time was losing to the Holy Roman Empire and its Catholic allies; the Swedish forces would quickly reverse that situation.


title: House of Vasa

text: Gustavus was married to Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, the daughter of John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and chose the Prussian city of Elbing as the base for his operations in Germany. He died in the Battle of Lützen in 1632. His early death was a great loss to the Lutheran side. This resulted in large parts of Germany and other countries, which had been conquered for Lutheranism, to be reconquered for Catholicism (via the Counter-Reformation). His involvement in the Thirty Years' War gave rise to the saying that he was the incarnation of "the Lion of the North", or as it is put in German "der Löwe von Mitternacht".


title: House of Vasa

text: Gustav II Adolf's success in making Sweden one of the great powers of Europe, and perhaps the most important power in the Thirty Years' War after France and Spain, was due not only to his military brilliance, but also to important institutional reforms in Sweden's government. The chief among these reforms was the institution of the first Parish registrations, so that the central government could more efficiently tax and conscript its populace.


title: House of Vasa

text: Gustavus Adolphus was an extremely able military commander. His innovative tactical integration of infantry, cavalry, logistics and particularly his use of artillery, earned him the title of the "Father of Modern Warfare". Future commanders who studied and admired Gustav II Adolf include Napoleon I of France and Carl von Clausewitz. His advancements in military science made Sweden the dominant Baltic power for the next one hundred years ("see Swedish Empire"). He is also the only Swedish monarch to be styled "the Great". This decision was made by the Swedish Estates of the Realm, when they convened in 1633. Thus, by their decision he is officially, to this day, to be called Gustaf Adolf the Great ("Gustavus Adolphus Magnus").


title: House of Vasa

text: Gustavus Adolphus was the main figure responsible for the success of Swedish arms during the Thirty Years' War and led his nation to great prestige. As a general, Gustavus Adolphus is famous for employing mobile artillery on the battlefield, as well as very aggressive tactics, where attack was stressed over defense, and mobility and cavalry initiative were emphasized.


title: House of Vasa

text: Christina was the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustav II Adolph and his wife Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg. At the age of six she succeeded her father on the throne upon his death at the Battle of Lützen, and began ruling when she reached the age of 18.


title: House of Vasa

text: Christina is remembered as one of the most educated women of the 1600s. She was fond of paintings, books, manuscripts, and sculptures. With her interest in religion, philosophy, mathematics and alchemy, she attracted many scientists to Stockholm, wanting the city to become the "Athens of the North". She was intelligent, fickle and moody; she rejected the sexual role of a woman. She caused a scandal when she decided not to marry and in 1654 when she abdicated her throne. She changed her name to Kristina Augusta Wasa and converted to Roman Catholicism, adopting the name Christina Alexandra.


title: House of Vasa

text: At the age of 28 the "Minerva of the North" moved to Rome. The Pope described Christina as "a queen without a realm, a Christian without faith, and a woman without shame". Notwithstanding all that, she became a leader of the theatrical and musical life and protected many Baroque artists, composers, and musicians.


title: House of Vasa

text: In 1654 Christina, the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, the Protestant Champion of the Thirty Years' War, abdicated, converted to Roman Catholicism and left the country. The throne passed to her half-cousin Charles X of the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, a cadet branch of the Wittelsbachs.


title: House of Vasa

text: The kings of the house of Holstein-Gottorp, which produced the kings of Sweden from 1751 to 1818, emphasized their Vasa descent through a female line. The current ruling house of Bernadotte similarly claims a Vasa mantle: Charles XIV was an adopted son of Charles XIII; his son Oscar I married a Vasa descendant Josephine of Leuchtenberg; their grandson Gustav V married Victoria of Baden who was a great-grandchild of Gustav IV Adolf of the house Holstein-Gottorp.


title: House of Vasa

text: John III of Sweden married Catherine Jagellonka, the sister of Sigismund II Augustus of Poland. When Sigismund II of Poland died without issue, the son of John III of Sweden and Catherine Jagellonka was elected King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania as Sigismund III in 1587. On John's death, Sigismund also gained the Swedish throne.


title: House of Vasa

text: However, Sigismund was Catholic, which ultimately led to his losing the throne in Sweden. His Lutheran uncle Charles IX succeeded him. We thus have two Houses of Vasa from this point onwards: the senior, Catholic branch ruling in Poland and Lithuania, and the cadet, Protestant branch ruling in Sweden. This arrangement led to numerous wars between the two states. After John, the Polish Vasa died out. See also Rulers of Poland.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (; 12 September 1902 – 22 August 1976), also known by his initials JK, was a prominent Brazilian politician who served as the 21st president of Brazil from 1956 to 1961. His term was marked by economic prosperity and political stability, being most known for the construction of a new capital, Brasília.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Kubitschek was born into a poor family in Diamantina, Minas Gerais. His father, João César de Oliveira (1872–1905), who died when Juscelino was two years old, was a traveling salesman. He was raised by his mother, a schoolteacher named Júlia Kubitschek (1873–1973). His mother was of part Czech and Roma descent. He was educated at a seminary school in Diamantina, where he was an average student.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Kubitschek attended the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte when he turned twenty. He became a licensed medical doctor after seven years of schooling. He then went to live in Europe for a few months after graduating eventually returning to Brazil after the revolution of 1930 that marked the ascension of President Getúlio Vargas.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Kubitschek served as a doctor in the military police and saw patients at a military hospital in Minas Gerais. Kubitschek befriended the Governor of Minas Gerais, Benedito Valadares who named Kubitschek his Chief of Staff in 1932. Two years later in 1934 Kubitschek ran for office for the first time, becoming a member of the Federal Chamber of Deputies of Brazil with the support of Partido Progressista (Progressive Party). In 1940, he was appointed Mayor of Belo Horizonte; in 1945, he was elected to that position with the support of Partido Social Democrático (Social Democratic Party) and was noted to be ambitious in his push to expand public works and improve infrastructure. It was his term as Mayor of Belo Horizonte that he would establish a strong, professional relationship with the renowned architect Oscar Niemeyer, who would later become instrumental in designing Brasilia. Kubitschek at this time commissioned Oscar Niemeyer to design several municipal buildings in Belo Horizonte.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: He would run again for the Federal Chamber of Deputies in 1945, and in 1950 run for Governor of the state of Minas Gerais. As Governor he was noted with focusing on addressing transportation and energy establishing a government energy corporation that built five new power plants, and he promoted improving roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: After President Getúlio Vargas committed suicide in 1954, his Vice-President João Café Filho fulfilled the rest of his term until the elections of 1955 which were held in October. Juscelino Kubitschek decided to run for president in a race with two other candidates. He ran with the slogan of “fifty years progress in five” and developed a platform that highlighted energy, agriculture, industry, education, and transportation. He also stressed a wish to diversify Brazil’s economy and open it up to foreign investment. He was also a vocal supporter of moving the government capital out of Rio de Janeiro, to a more central location in the country, to promote regional development.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Before Kubitschek was even inaugurated however, rumors of a military coup were brewing and the opposition party União Democrática Nacional (National Democratic Union or UDN) became vocal over his close ties to Vargas and his alleged sympathy towards communists. Henrique Teixeira Lott, then Minister of War, and a coalition of high ranking military officers staged a countercoup to ensure that Juscelino Kubitschek was inaugurated. Juscelino Kubitschek would be inaugurated as the 21st President of Brazil on 31 January 1956.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: His economic plan had 31 goals distributed in six large groups: energy, transport, food, base industries, education, and the main goal, the construction of Brasília. This plan sought to diversify and expand the Brazilian economy, based on industrial expansion and integration of the national territory.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: As a practicing doctor, Juscelino was passionate about reforming healthcare. Kubitschek campaigned on establishing a central health bureaucracy that previously did not exist to address rural health issues more adequately. The most notable is DNERU which was an agency created to address tuberculosis and malaria, and issue vaccines in areas of the country where access to healthcare was scarce.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Although his main project was to develop the national industry, it was with the "Goals plan", launched in 1956, that there was a greater opening of the national economy for foreign investment. He made all imported machines and industrial equipment exempt from taxes, as well as to assist foreign capital. However, the exemption only applied if the foreign capital was associated with the national capital ("associated capital"). To amplify the internal market, he developed a generous credit policy.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: He promoted the development of the automobile industry, naval industry, heavy industry and the construction of hydroelectric power stations. With the exception of the hydroelectric industry, Juscelino practically created an economy without state-owned companies. He also had a very progressive agenda proposed for Education, however that was never carried out.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Kubitschek cared a great deal about the construction of transregional roads. He was criticised for focusing only in road construction and putting aside the railways, a decision still controversial today. The construction of the roads helped the integration of the Amazon region, together with the construction of Brasilia.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: In the short term the economy boomed, with a stronger industry under his leadership. More dependent on energy resources, Brazil became one of the countries most affected by the oil crises of 1973 and 1979. Having to import over 80% of its consumption, the quadrupling of oil prices greatly contributed to Brazil's debts and spiralling inflation, for which his administration was directly blamed by the critics as a result. In fact, the economy continued to suffer well into the 1980s as Brazil's industries became less and less competitive in the global market.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: By the end of his term, the foreign debt had grown from 87 million dollars to 297 million dollars. Inflation and wealth inequality had grown larger, with rural-zone strikes that spread to the urban areas. However, the minimum wage from that time is still considered the highest at any moment in Brazilian history. He also initially sought a loan from International Monetary Fund, but backed out of the negotiations.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Kubitschek ended his time in office with a growth of 80% in industrial production but with an inflation rate of 43%.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: The idea of building a new capital in the center of the country was already idealised in the Brazilian constitutions of 1891, 1934 and 1946, but it was only in 1956 that planning began to take form in response to Kubitschek's campaign promise to develop the interior. Initially the move of the capital from Rio de Janeiro was controversial and had division and opposition from people within Rio and throughout Brazil. Debates that included statesmen, residents and professionals were televised on the TV show "Que sera do Rio" and letters to the editor in "Correio da Manhã".


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: The work, led by urban planner Lucio Costa, architect Oscar Niemeyer and landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx, started in February 1957. More than 200 machines were put to work and 30,000 workers came from every part of the country, though most from the northeast. The construction went on day and night to meet the objective of finishing Brasília by 21 April 1960, in a homage to the Inconfidência Mineira and Rome's founding. A completely new capital city, its streets, government palaces, infrastructure, living facilities, etc., suddenly emerged in the middle of a savanna in just 41 months, and before the target date. As soon as it was inaugurated, Brasília was considered a masterpiece of urbanism and modern architecture.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Brasilia plays a strategic role in integrating Brazil's farthest regions, bringing development to unpopulated areas and guaranteeing Brazil's cultural and territorial unity.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: The construction of Brasilia, fostered the development of many roads, linking Brazil's vast territories. One important example was the construction of the Belém-Brasilia road. Previously, the only way to go from Rio or São Paulo to Belém was via ship on the Atlantic Ocean. During the Second World War, this weak link had been blocked by German U-boats, virtually disrupting all commerce.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: The new capital was soon to help integrate all the Brazilian regions, create jobs and absorb a workforce from the Brazilian Northeast, and to stimulate the economy of the Central-west and North. During the construction of Brasilia, in the haste to finish the job, accidents were frequent, something Kubitschek's government did its utmost to cover up.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Kubitschek's government was often accused of corruption. The accusations began at the time he was governor and intensified during his presidency, when the construction of Brasília began. There were serious reasons to believe that people connected to Juscelino's had been favored in the construction. Also, the Pan-Air Brazil held a monopoly on the transport of people and goods during this period, yet another source of controversy.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: During his time in office, "Time" magazine wrote that he had the seventh greatest fortune in the world, a claim that was never proven. In fact, upon his death many years later, it was shown he had earned very modest means. This did not stop a candidate for the next presidency, Jânio Quadros, from stating during his presidential campaign that he would "sweep the corruption out of the country". Later, during the military regime, Juscelino would be questioned about the corruption allegations and about his supposed ties with communist groups.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Kubitschek was succeeded by Jânio Quadros in 1961. After the military took power in 1964, Kubitschek's political rights were suspended for 10 years. He went into self-imposed exile and stayed in numerous U.S. and European cities.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Kubitschek returned to Brazil in 1967, but died in a car crash in 1976, near the city of Resende in the state of Rio de Janeiro. 350,000 mourners were present at his burial in Brasília. He is now buried in the JK Memorial in Brasilia, which was opened in 1981.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: On 26 April 2000, the former left-wing governor of Rio de Janeiro, Leonel Brizola, alleged that the former presidents of Brazil, João Goulart and Kubitschek, who died a few months apart in 1976, were murdered as part of the US-backed Operation Condor, and requested the investigation of their deaths as part of the National Truth Commission investigations. They were originally reported to have died respectively of a heart attack and a car accident. On 27 March 2014, the commission concluded that Kubitschek was not assassinated.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: The Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek International Airport of Brasília, the Juscelino Kubitschek bridge and Juscelino Kubitschek Power Plant are named after him. There is also a luxury hotel named Kubitschek Plaza located in that city.


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: Many cities have things named after him, such as Juscelino Kubitschek, Santa Maria. "JK" is a ubiquitous acronym honouring the ex-president, who is often seen by Brazilians as the "father of modern Brazil".


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: In 2006, Globo created a miniseries based on Kubitschek's life called "JK", featuring Wagner Moura (portraying Kubitschek ages 18–43) and José Wilker (ages 44–75).


title: Juscelino Kubitschek

text: In 1980, his daughter Márcia Kubitschek (1942–2000) married Cuban-American ballet star Fernando Bujones. Márcia Kubitschek was elected to the National Congress of Brazil in 1987 and served as lieutenant governor of the Federal District from 1991 to 1994.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The Sicilian Expedition was an Athenian military expedition to Sicily, which took place from 415–413 BC during the Peloponnesian War between Athens on one side and Sparta, Syracuse and Corinth on the other. The expedition ended in a devastating defeat for the Athenian forces, severely impacting Athens.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The expedition was hampered from the outset by uncertainty in its purpose and command structure—political maneuvering in Athens swelled a lightweight force of twenty ships into a massive armada, and the expedition's primary proponent, Alcibiades, was recalled from command to stand trial before the fleet even reached Sicily. Still, the Athenians achieved early successes. Syracuse, the most powerful state in Sicily, responded exceptionally slowly to the Athenian threat and, as a result, was almost completely invested before the arrival of back up in the form of Spartan general, Gylippus, who galvanized its inhabitants into action. From that point forward, however, as the Athenians ceded the initiative to their newly energized opponents, the tide of the conflict shifted. A massive reinforcing armada from Athens briefly gave the Athenians the upper hand once more, but a disastrous failed assault on a strategic high point and several crippling naval defeats damaged the Athenian soldiers' ability to continue fighting and maintain morale. The Athenians attempted a last-ditch evacuation from Syracuse. The evacuation failed, and nearly the entire expedition were captured or were destroyed in Sicily.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The effects of the defeat were immense. Two hundred ships and thousands of soldiers, an appreciable portion of Athens' total manpower, were lost in a single stroke. The city's enemies on the mainland and in Persia were encouraged to take action, and rebellions broke out in the Aegean. Some historians consider the defeat to have been the turning point in the war, though Athens continued to fight for another decade. Thucydides observed that contemporary Greeks were shocked not that Athens eventually fell after the defeat, but rather that it fought on for as long as it did, so devastating were the losses suffered. Athens managed to recover remarkably well from the expedition materially, the principal issue being the loss of manpower rather than the loss of ships.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Although Athens had never involved itself deeply in Sicilian affairs, it had ties there before the onset of the Peloponnesian War, dating back to at least the mid-5th century BC. To small Sicilian cities, Athens was a potential counter to the powerful city of Syracuse, which was strong enough to potentially dominate the island. Syracuse, like Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies, was a Dorian city, while most of Athens's allies on the island were Ionian. Another source of conflict was the close relationship of Syracuse and other Dorian cities of the west to Athens's great commercial rival, Corinth. To the Athenians, Sicily was a threat—an unencumbered Syracuse might send grain or other aid to the Peloponnesians—as well as a venue for possible conquests.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: In 427 BC, Athens had sent twenty ships, under the command of Laches, in response to an appeal for help from Leontini. That expedition, operating from a base at Rhegium, remained in the area for several years, fighting alongside Athens's local allies against the Syracusans and their allies, without achieving any dramatic successes. In 425, the Athenians planned to reinforce their contingent with an additional forty triremes, but that fleet never reached Sicily, as it became caught up in the pivotal Battle of Pylos on the way there. By the time that fleet reached Sicily in late summer, Athens's Sicilian allies had grown weary of stalemated warfare, and agreed to negotiate with Syracuse and its allies. At the Congress of Gela, the Sicilian cities made peace on the basis of "Sicily for the Sicilians", and the Athenian fleet left for home.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: In 415, Athens and Sparta had been formally at peace since 421, when the Peace of Nicias had brought the Archidamian War to a close. The terms of that peace, however, had never been fulfilled; Sparta had never surrendered Amphipolis to Athens, as required by the treaty, and in return the Athenians had held Pylos. More recently, Athenian and Spartan troops had fought at the Battle of Mantinea in 418, with Athens supporting Argos, Mantinea, and other Peloponnesian cities in an attempt to establish a stable anti-Spartan alliance in the Peloponnese. That attempt, largely orchestrated by the Athenian nobleman Alcibiades, would have destroyed Sparta's control over the Peloponnesian League had it succeeded. Alcibiades rebounded politically from this defeat, and was elected as a general in the spring of 417. Control of Athens' foreign policy remained divided between a "peace party" (or pro-Spartan party) led by Nicias, and a "war party" led by Alcibiades.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The peace established in Sicily at the Congress of Gela did not last long. Shortly after the Congress, Syracuse intervened in an episode of civil strife between the democratic and oligarchic parties in Leontini, supporting the oligarchs. Before too long, the prospect of foreign domination had united the Leontinians, and the two parties united in war against Syracuse. Athens had sent an emissary to Sicily in 422 to sound out the possibility of renewing the war against Syracuse, but achieved nothing. In 416, however, a second Sicilian conflict provided the invitation Athens had sought in 422. The city of Segesta—an Athenian ally in the 420s—went to war against Selinus and, after losing an initial battle, sent to Athens for help. In order to win the Athenians' support, the Segestaeans claimed that they were capable of funding much of the cost of sending a fleet, offering 60 talents of uncoined silver up front, and tricking Athenian ambassadors into believing that the city was more prosperous than it actually was, by making sure that the ambassadors saw all their golden and other valuable objects in a way as if these were just part of what they had.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: At Athens, the Segestan ambassadors presented their case for intervention to the assembly, where debate over the proposal quickly divided along traditional factional lines. The assembly eventually approved an expedition composed of sixty triremes, without hoplite accompaniment, commanded by Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus. Thucydides reports that Nicias had been appointed against his preference, but offers no further detail regarding that debate.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Five days after that first debate, a second assembly was held to arrange the logistics of the expedition. There, Nicias attempted to persuade the assembly to overturn its previous decision regarding whether to send an expedition at all. Over the course of several speeches, Nicias raised a series of different arguments against the expedition. He reminded the Athenians that they would be leaving powerful enemies behind them if they sent a force to Sicily, and warned that they would be opening hostilities with enemies too difficult and numerous to conquer and rule. Nicias also attacked Alcibiades's credibility, claiming that he and his allies were inexperienced and self-aggrandizing young men eager to lead Athens into war for their own ends.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: In response, Alcibiades dismissed the attack on himself by pointing to the good he had done for Athens as a private citizen and public leader. He rebutted Nicias's warnings about the plan for the expedition by reminding the Athenians of their obligation to their Sicilian allies, appealing to the enterprising spirit that had won Athens her empire, and pointing out that many states on Sicily would support Athens in her operations there.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The assembly was clearly leaning towards Alcibiades's side, so Nicias, judging them unlikely to cancel the expedition if he argued against it directly, chose a different tactic. He described the wealth and power of the Sicilian cities Athens would be challenging, and stated that a larger expedition than previously approved would be required, expecting that the prospect of approving such a massive expenditure would prove unappealing to the citizenry. Contrary to Nicias's plan, the assembly enthusiastically embraced his proposal, and passed a motion allowing the generals to arrange for a force of over 100 ships and 5,000 hoplites. Nicias's ploy had failed badly. His misreading of the assembly had altered the strategic situation; whereas the loss of 60 ships would have been painful but bearable, the loss of the larger force would be catastrophic. "Without Nicias's intervention," wrote Donald Kagan, "there would have been an Athenian expedition against Sicily in 415, but there could not have been a disaster."


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: After lengthy preparations, the fleet was ready to sail. The night before they were to leave, someone destroyed many of the hermai—the stone markers representing Hermes, placed around the city for good luck. This event was taken very seriously by the Athenian people as it was considered a bad omen for the expedition, as well as evidence of a revolutionary conspiracy to overthrow the government. According to Plutarch, Androcles, a political enemy of Alcibiades, used false witness to claim that Alcibiades and his friends were responsible. Alcibiades volunteered to be put on trial under penalty of death in order to prove his innocence (wanting to avoid his enemies charging him, in his absence, with more false information), but this request was denied.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: He was otherwise extremely popular and had the support of the entire army; he had also gained the support of Argos and Mantinea during the preparations. He was not charged, and the fleet sailed the next day. His opponents, however, waited for Alcibiades to set sail before they leveled the charges against him. This was because the army, his main source of support, would be absent, and his supporters would be outnumbered when the votes were cast.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Many people in Syracuse, the richest and most powerful city of Sicily, felt that the Athenians were in fact coming to attack them under the pretense of aiding Segesta in a minor war. The Syracusan general Hermocrates suggested that they ask for help from other Sicilian cities, and from Carthage. He also wanted to meet the Athenian fleet in the Ionian Sea before they arrived. Others argued that Athens was no threat to Syracuse, and some people did not believe there was a fleet at all, because Athens would not be so foolish as to attack them while they were still at war with Sparta. Athenagoras accused Hermocrates and others of attempting to instill fear among the population and trying to overthrow the government.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: At the first assembly that authorized the expedition, the Athenians named Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus as its commanders; that decision remained unchanged at the second assembly. Alcibiades was the expedition's leading proponent, and the leader of the war party, Nicias its leading critic and the leader of the peace party. Lamachus, meanwhile, was a fifty-year-old career soldier, of whom the longest extant portrayal is a series of scenes in Aristophanes' "The Acharnians" that satirize him as a braggadocious, perpetually impoverished warrior. The reasons for the Athenians' choice are not recorded, but the assembly may have been seeking to balance the aggressive young leader with a more conservative older figure, with Lamachus added for his military expertise.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: In practice, each of the three generals proposed a different strategy. Nicias proposed a narrowly circumscribed expedition; he felt that the fleet should sail to Selinus and force a settlement between Selinus and Segesta. After that, he proposed to briefly show the flag around Sicily and then return home, unless the Segestans were willing to pay for the full cost of the expanded expedition. Alcibiades proposed to first attempt to win over allies on the island through diplomacy, and then attack Selinus and Syracuse. Lamachus, meanwhile, proposed taking advantage of the element of surprise by sailing directly to Syracuse and giving battle outside the city. Such a sudden attack, he felt, would catch the Syracusans off guard and possibly induce their quick surrender. Eventually, however, Lamachus settled the three-way division of opinion by endorsing Alcibiades's plan.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The Athenian fleet first sailed to Corcyra to meet up with their allies, and the ships were divided into three sections, one for each commander. Three of the ships were sent ahead to look for allies in Sicily. The fleet at this point consisted of 134 triremes (100 of which were from Athens), 5,100 hoplites (of which 2,200 were Athenians), 480 archers, 700 slingers, 120 other light troops, and 30 cavalry, as well as 130 other supply ships and all the crews of the triremes and other non-combatants.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: They had little luck finding allies along the coast of southern Italy and, when the three other ships returned, they learned that Segesta did not have the money they promised. Nicias had expected this, but the other commanders were dismayed. Nicias suggested they make a show of force and then return home, while Alcibiades said they should encourage revolts against Syracuse, and then attack Syracuse and Selinus. Lamachus said they should attack Syracuse right away, as it was the predominant city-state in Sicily.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The fleet proceeded to Catania, where an Athenian ship arrived to inform Alcibiades that he was under arrest, not only for the destruction of the hermai, but also for supposedly profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries. Alcibiades agreed to return in his ship, but when they stopped in southern Italy at Thurii, he escaped and sailed to the Peloponnese, where he sought refuge in Sparta. Athens passed a death sentence "in absentia", his guilt seemingly proven. In Sparta, Alcibiades gave the members of the Peloponnesian League critical information on the Athenian Empire.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: In Sicily, the fleet was redivided into two parts. The first contingent, commanded by Nicias, sailed to Segesta and forced the Segestans to pay the thirty talents they had promised the Athenians for their assistance against their rival Selinus. The second contingent, under Lamachus, sailed to and stormed Hyccara, a small city allied to Selinus, and enslaved its populace. The Athenian army then marched through the Sicilian interior, to impress and negotiate with the Sicels, and returned to Catania. There they wintered and made preparations for their upcoming siege of Syracuse. When the campaigning season started, the Syracusans moved against the Athenians while they were still encamped at Catania. While the Syracusans were marching to Catania, they learned the Athenians had boarded their ships and sailed into the Great Harbour at Syracuse. The Syracusans quickly hurried back and prepared for battle.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The Athenian army landed to the south of Syracuse and fortified their position. When the Syracusan army finally arrived both sides waited for the other to make the first move. Eventually the Syracusans withdrew and made camp for the night. The next morning the Athenians lined up eight men deep, with the Argives and Mantineans on the right, the rest of the allies on the left, and the Athenians themselves in the centre. The Syracusans were deployed sixteen men deep, in order to offset the advantage of the Athenians in experience. They also had 1,200 cavalry, vastly outnumbering the Athenian cavalry, although the total numbers of men were about the same. The Athenians attacked first, believing themselves to be the stronger and more experienced army, and after some unexpectedly strong resistance, the Argives pushed back the Syracusan left wing, causing the rest to flee. The Syracusan cavalry prevented the Athenians from chasing them, thereby averting a catastrophe for the Syracusans, who lost about 260 men, and the Athenians about 50. The Athenians then sailed back to Catania for the winter.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Hermocrates suggested that the Syracusans reorganize their army. He wanted to reduce the number of generals from fifteen to three; Hermocrates, Heraclides, and Sicanus were elected and Hermocrates sent for help from Corinth and Sparta. During the winter the Athenians also sent for more money and cavalry, while the Syracusans built some forts, and a wall extending the territory of the city.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Meanwhile, diplomats from both camps went to Camarina in an attempt to form an alliance with that city. Hermocrates wanted Camarina and the other cities to unite with Syracuse against Athens, but Euphemus, the representative for the Athenians, said Syracuse only wanted to rule Camarina, and they should join with Athens if they wanted to remain free. The Camarinans decided not to join either side, although they quietly sent aid to the Syracusans, whose greater proximity and potential victory they feared more than that of the Athenians.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Athens then sent for help from the Carthaginians and Etruscans, and both Athens and Syracuse tried to gain assistance from the Greek cities in Italy. In Corinth, representatives from Syracuse met with Alcibiades, who was working with Sparta. Alcibiades informed Sparta that there would be an invasion of the Peloponnese if Sicily was conquered, and that they should send help to Syracuse and also fortify Decelea near Athens. The Athenians, he said, feared nothing more than the occupation of Decelea. The Spartans took this advice into consideration, and appointed Gylippus to command their fleet.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: In the spring of 414 BC, reinforcements arrived from Athens, consisting of 250 cavalry, 30 mounted archers, and 300 talents of silver, which was used to pay for 400 more cavalry from their Sicilian allies. In the summer, they landed on the Epipolae, the cliff above Syracuse, which was defended by Diomilus and 600 Syracusans. In the attack, Diomilus and 300 of his men were killed.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Both sides then began building a series of walls. The Athenian circumvallation, known as ""the Circle"", was meant to blockade Syracuse from the rest of the island, while the Syracusans built a number of counter-walls from the city to their various forts. A force of 300 Athenians destroyed part of the first counter-wall, but the Syracusans began to build another one, this time with a ditch, blocking the Athenians from extending their wall to the sea. Another 300 Athenians attacked this wall and captured it, but were driven off by a Syracusan counter-attack in which Lamachus was killed, leaving only Nicias from the three original commanders. The Syracusans destroyed 300 m (1,000 feet) of the Athenian wall, but could not destroy the Circle, which was defended by Nicias. After Nicias defeated the attack, the Athenians finally extended their wall to the sea, completely blockading Syracuse by land, and their fleet entered the harbour to blockade them from sea. The Syracusans responded by removing Hermocrates and Sicanus as generals and replacing them with Heraclides, Eucles, and Tellias.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Soon after this, the Spartan general Gylippus, responding to the call for help, landed at Himera. He marched towards Syracuse with 700 armed sailors, 1,000 hoplites from Himera and Selinus, 100+ cavalry, and 1,000 Sicels. They built another counter-wall on the Epipolae, but were driven back by the Athenians; in a second battle, however, Gylippus defeated the Athenians by making better use of his cavalry and javelin-throwers. The Syracusans completed their counter-wall, making the Athenian wall useless. The Corinthian fleet also arrived, under the command of Erasinides.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Nicias, exhausted and suffering from illness, now believed it would be impossible to capture Syracuse. He wrote a letter to Athens, not trusting messengers to give an accurate report, and suggested that they either recall the expedition or send out massive reinforcements. He hoped they would choose to recall him, if not the whole expedition, but instead they chose to send reinforcements, under Demosthenes and Eurymedon. Eurymedon left immediately with ten ships, and Demosthenes left sometime later with a much larger force. Meanwhile, in early 413 BC Sparta acted on Alcibiades's advice to fortify Decelea, and the Athenian force sent to relieve it was destroyed.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: While Eurymedon was sailing, Gylippus's 80 Syracusan ships, including 35 triremes, attacked 60 of the Athenian ships (25 of which were triremes) in the harbour. Gylippus commanded a simultaneous attack on the Athenian land forces. In the harbour, the Athenians were successful, losing only three ships while the Syracusans lost eleven. However, Gylippus defeated the Athenians on land and captured two Athenian forts. Afterwards, Gylippus succeeded in convincing all the neutral cities on Sicily to join him, but the allies of Athens killed 800 Corinthians, including all but one of the Corinthian ambassadors.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Demosthenes and Eurymedon then arrived with 73 ships and 5,000 hoplites. On their arrival, 80 Syracusan ships attacked 75 of the Athenian ships in their harbour. This battle went on for two days with no result, until the Syracusans pretended to back away and attacked the Athenians while they were eating. However, only seven Athenian ships were sunk.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Demosthenes landed his forces and attacked the Syracusan counter-wall on Epipolae in a risky night engagement (against the advice of Nicias). He succeeded in breaching the wall, routing or killing some of the first Syracusan defenders but was defeated by a force of Boeotians in the Spartan contingent. Many Athenians fell off the cliff to their deaths, and some of the rest were killed as they fled down the slope. Plutarch claims the casualties from this action numbered 2,000.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Demosthenes' arrival provided little relief to the other Athenians. Their camp was located near a marsh and many of them had fallen ill, including Nicias. Seeing this, Demosthenes thought they should all return to Athens to defend Attica against the Spartan invasion that had taken Decelea. Nicias, who had opposed the expedition at first, now did not want to show any weakness either to the Syracusans and Spartans, or to the Athenians at home who he thought would have him executed, stating he'd rather die by the hands of the enemy than by those of his countrymen. He hoped the Syracusans would soon run out of money, and he had also been informed that there were pro-Athenian factions in Syracuse who were ready to turn the city over to him. Demosthenes and Eurymedon reluctantly agreed that Nicias might be right, but when reinforcements from the Peloponnese arrived, Nicias agreed that they should leave.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Just as the Athenians were preparing to sail home, on August 28, there was a lunar eclipse, and Nicias, described by Thucydides as a particularly superstitious man, asked the priests what he should do. They suggested the Athenians wait for another 27 days, and Nicias agreed. The Syracusans took advantage of this, and 76 of their ships attacked 86 Athenian ships in the harbour. The Athenians were defeated and Eurymedon was killed. Many of the ships were pushed on to the shore, where Gylippus was waiting. He killed some of the crews and captured 18 beached ships, but a force of Athenians and Etruscans forced Gylippus back.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The Athenians were now in a desperate situation. On September 3, the Syracusans began to completely blockade the entrance to the port, trapping the Athenians inside. Outside Syracuse, the Athenians built a smaller walled enclosure for their sick and injured, and put everyone else (including many of the soldiers remaining on land) on their ships for one last battle, on September 9. The fleet was now commanded by Demosthenes, Menander, and Euthydemus, while the Syracusan fleet was led by Sicanus and Agatharchus of Syracuse on the wings and Pythen from Corinth in the centre. Each side had about 100 ships participating.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The Athenian ships were extremely cramped and had no room to manoeuvre. Collisions were frequent, and the Syracusans could easily ram the Athenian ships head-on, without the Athenians being able to move to ram them broadside, as they preferred. Javelin throwers and archers shot from each ship, but the Syracusans deflected Athenian grappling hooks by covering their decks with animal hides.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The battle went on for some time with no clear victor, but the Syracusans eventually pushed the Athenian ships toward the coast, and the Athenian crews fled to the camp behind their wall. Demosthenes suggested that they man the ships again and attempt to force their way out, as now both fleets had lost about half their ships and Nicias agreed. The men themselves did not want to board the ship because they were afraid. They then decided to retreat by land. Hermocrates sent some supposed informers to the Athenians to falsely report that there were spies and roadblocks further inland, so the Athenians would be safer if they did not march away. Gylippus used this delay to build the roadblocks that did not yet exist, and the Syracusans burned or towed away the Athenian ships on the beach, so that they had no way off the island.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: On September 13, the Athenians left camp leaving their wounded behind and their dead unburied. The survivors, including all the non-combatants, numbered 40,000, and some of the wounded crawled after them as far as they could go. As they marched they defeated a small Syracusan force guarding the river Anapus, but other Syracusan cavalry and light troops continually harassed them. Near the Erineus river, Demosthenes and Nicias became separated, and Demosthenes was attacked by the Syracusans and forced to surrender his 6,000 troops. The rest of the Syracusans followed Nicias to the Assinarus river, where Nicias's troops became disorganized in the rush to find drinking water. Many Athenians were trampled to death and others were killed while fighting with fellow Athenians. On the other side of the river a Syracusan force was waiting, and the Athenians were almost completely massacred, by far the worst defeat of the entire expedition in terms of lives lost. Nicias personally surrendered to Gylippus, hoping the Spartan would remember his role in the peace treaty of 421. The few who escaped found refuge in Catana.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The prisoners, now numbering only 7,000, were held in the stone quarries near Syracuse which were considered the safest prison for such a number of men. Demosthenes and Nicias were executed, against the orders of Gylippus. The rest spent ten weeks in horrible conditions in their makeshift prison, until all but the Athenians, Italians, and Sicilians were sold as slaves. The remaining Athenians were left to die slowly of disease and starvation in the quarry. In the end some of the very last survivors managed to escape and eventually trickled to Athens, bringing first-hand news of the disaster. The specific fate of Nicias and Demosthenes is not clearly recorded, but according to Thucydides' account, were executed after their surrender, Demosthenes due to his earlier role in the war at Pylos, Nicias due to worries of a possibility of escape through bribery and possibility of causing later harm.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: Some historians have said that the Sicilian expedition was fatally flawed from the outset, that the Athenian attempt to conquer Sicily was an example of mad arrogance. Others however argue that there was nothing inherently wrong with the plan strategically, and that it would have succeeded if the Athenian leadership had not made a succession of bad tactical decisions. J. B. Bury judged that by far the biggest single reason for the expedition's catastrophic failure was the incompetence of Nicias, aggravated by the recall of Alcibiades.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: In Athens, the citizens did not, at first, believe the defeat. Plutarch, in his "Life of Nicias", recounts how the news reached the city:


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: It is said that the Athenians would not believe their loss, in a great degree because of the person who first brought them news of it. For a certain stranger, it seems, coming to Piraeus, and there sitting in a barber's shop, began to talk of what had happened, as if the Athenians already knew all that had passed; which the barber hearing, before he acquainted anybody else, ran as fast as he could up into the city, addressed himself to the Archons, and presently spread it about in the public Place. On which, there being everywhere, as may be imagined, terror and consternation, the Archons summoned a general assembly, and there brought in the man and questioned him how he came to know. And he, giving no satisfactory account, was taken for a spreader of false intelligence and a disturber of the city, and was, therefore, fastened to the wheel and racked a long time, till other messengers arrived that related the whole disaster particularly. So hardly was Nicias believed to have suffered the calamity which he had often predicted.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: When the magnitude of the disaster became evident, there was a general panic. Attica seemed free for the taking, as the Spartans were so close by in Decelea.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: The defeat caused a great shift in policy for many other states, as well. States which had until now been neutral joined with Sparta, assuming that Athens's defeat was imminent. Many of Athens' allies in the Delian League also revolted, and although the city immediately began to rebuild its fleet, there was little they could do about the revolts for the time being. The expedition and consequent disaster left Athens reeling. Some 10,000 hoplites had perished and, though this was a blow, the real concern was the loss of the huge fleet dispatched to Sicily. Triremes could be replaced, but the 30,000 experienced oarsmen lost in Sicily were irreplaceable and Athens had to rely on ill-trained slaves to form the backbone of her new fleet.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: In 411 BC, the Athenian democracy was overthrown in favour of an oligarchy, and Persia joined the war on the Spartan side. Although things looked grim for Athens, they were able to recover for a few years. The oligarchy was soon overthrown, and Athens won the Battle of Cynossema; however, the defeat of the Sicilian expedition was essentially the beginning of the end for Athens. In 404 BC they were defeated and occupied by Sparta.


title: Sicilian Expedition

text: John Fletcher's 90 minute radio play "The Sicilian Expedition - Ancient Athenian War Drama with Iraq War", which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in December 2005, is based on real events from the Peloponnesian War, particularly the Sicilian Expedition. Fletcher implies a parallel between America's involvement in the Iraq war and the Athenian aggression against Sicily, which in his view were both disastrous abroad and at home.


title: Linda Robson

text: Linda Patricia Mary Dunford ( Robson; born 13 March 1958) is an English actress and television presenter. She is best known for playing Tracey Stubbs in the sitcom "Birds of a Feather" (1989–1998, 2014–2020) and her appearances as a weekly panellist on the ITV series "Loose Women" (2012–2018, 2020–present).


title: Linda Robson

text: As a founder student of Anna Scher's Theatre School, Robson had a significant number of appearances on screen as a child actor.


title: Linda Robson

text: Robson was born in Islington, London to an English father and an Irish mother. She has two sisters. Educated at Ecclesbourne Primary School, where Anna Scher started her Theatre School in 1968 with Robson and Pauline Quirke being amongst the founding students. Later she attended the Shelburne Secondary School for Girls, now amalgamated into Highbury Fields School, and The Young Actors Theatre, all in Islington.


title: Linda Robson

text: Robson first appeared on screen in the 1970 film "Junket 89" produced by Children's Film Foundation alongside other actors from The Anna Scher Children's Theatre in Islington, including Pauline Quirke.


title: Linda Robson

text: Robson had a minor role as Barbara, a young girl amidst a group of roaming teenagers, in the second series of the original BBC Survivors drama aired in 1976.


title: Linda Robson

text: She appeared in "Pauline's Quirkes" (her first regular appearance with Pauline Quirke), the drama series "The Crezz", the short lived sitcom "L for Lester" (in 1982), and the IRA drama "Harry's Game". Robson played Maggie Moon in "Shine on Harvey Moon", a British comedy drama television series made by Central Television for ITV from 8 January 1982 to 23 August 1985 and briefly revived in 1995 by Meridian.


title: Linda Robson

text: Robson played Tracey Stubbs in the BBC sitcom "Birds of a Feather" from 1989 to 1998, starring with Pauline Quirke and Lesley Joseph.


title: Linda Robson

text: Robson subsequently appeared in programmes such as "The Bill" and "Crossroads". Following the success of "Birds of a Feather", she appeared again with Pauline Quirke in "Jobs for the Girls". She appeared with Jenny Eclair and Dillie Keane in the original cast of "Grumpy Old Women Live", a spin-off from the television series "Grumpy Old Women", written by Jenny Eclair and Judith Holder. On 9 August 2007, she narrated a show for ITV, called "Britain's Youngest Brides". In July 2008, Robson entered "Celebrity MasterChef" and went out in the first round.


title: Linda Robson

text: In July 2010, Robson made a guest appearance in BBC drama series "Casualty", playing the mother of a young man with bipolar disorder. Robson was the first celebrity to arrive in Australia ahead of the 2012 series of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!", but was voted out on the 13th day in the camp on 23 November 2012, finishing in 9th place.


title: Linda Robson

text: Robson made her debut as a guest panellist on "Loose Women" on 19 August 2003, appearing alongside Kaye Adams, Carol McGiffin & Terri Dwyer. Robson returned to the show as a guest panellist on 2 December 2010, before returning as an occasional panellist from 11 November 2011. Regular panellist Jenny Eclair left the show in June 2012, meaning Robson became a regular panellist on 19 June 2012, replacing Eclair. As of 2016 Robson appears on "Loose Women" 1 or 2 times a week. Robson made 3 appearances during Series 16, 28 appearances in Series 17, 44 appearances in Series 18, 35 appearances in Series 19, 57 appearances in Series 20, 34 appearances in series 21, 49 appearances in series 22, and for Series 23 Linda made 21 appearances as of December 2018. Robson did not return after Christmas and was replaced by Brenda Edwards.


title: Linda Robson

text: In 2013, it was announced that "Birds of a Feather" was to return for a tenth series, this time airing on the ITV network. The first episode aired on 2 January 2014 to an audience of over 8 million. After a successful tenth series, it was announced in 2014 that "Birds of a Feather" would return for an eleventh series, which began on 26 December 2014. In March 2015, it was announced that ITV had commissioned a third revived series (twelfth overall) which began airing in January 2016. The next series has been ordered and plans were mad to air in 2017. However filming has yet begun for a full series. Confusion occurred in February 2019 when Nigel Lythgoe seemed to suggest the series had ended. However an ITV representative later confirmed this was false as reported on digital Spy. ITV have confirmed a new series will air and the hope was to start recording this year to mark 30 years of the sitcom. However this has since been put on hold due to Lesley Joseph's busy schedule. A 2020 special has been filmed for this Christmas but without Pauline Quirke who has retired from acting to put efforts in to other works.


title: Linda Robson

text: Robson is an occasional guest presenter for BBC London 94.9. In November 2012, she played the part of Lisa, the hypochondriac mother of Luke (Daniel Mays) in Alexander Kirk's play "Told You I Was Ill", episode two in the series "Living with Mother" on BBC Radio 4.


title: Linda Robson

text: In November 2014, Robson was a part of Gareth Malone's 'All Star Choir', who released a cover version of "Wake Me Up" to raise money for the BBC's Children in Need. The single reached No.1 on the Official UK Singles Chart.


title: Linda Robson

text: In 2011, Robson appeared in the film "Anuvahood" as K's mum Pauline. In 2012, Robson took part in the twelfth series of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!", coming in 9th place. On 12 November 2016 Robson appeared on "Tipping Point Lucky Stars" on ITV.


title: Linda Robson

text: In 2022, Robson appeared on the seventh series of "Celebrity Coach Trip" alongside her "Birds of a Feather" co-star Lesley Joseph.


title: Linda Robson

text: Robson has lived in Islington, London, all her life. She is married with three children. Her first child Lauren was born to her then longtime partner Tony Tyler, her other children were fathered by her husband Mark, whom she married in 1990.


title: Linda Robson

text: Robson's father was a chain-smoker, who died of lung cancer when he was 57. Her mother also died of cancer in August 2012. In October 2013, Robson voiced an interactive video campaign for the British Lung Foundation aiming to ban smoking in cars with children on board in the United Kingdom, in memory of her father.


title: Linda Robson

text: Robson is a fan of Boris Johnson and revealed on "Loose Women" that she used to see and chat with him when he lived in Islington. When it was announced that he had resigned as Prime Minister she said she was sad.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Dutch–Portuguese War (; ) was a global armed conflict involving Dutch forces, in the form of the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company, as well as their allies against the Iberian Union, and after 1640, the Portuguese Empire. Beginning in 1602, the conflict primarily involved the Dutch companies invading Portuguese colonies in the Americas, Africa, and the East Indies. The war can be thought of as an extension of the Eighty Years' War being fought in Europe at the time between Spain and the Netherlands, as Portugal was in a dynastic union with the Spanish Crown after the War of the Portuguese Succession, for most of the conflict. However, the conflict had little to do with the war in Europe and served mainly as a way for the Dutch to gain an overseas empire and control trade at the cost of the Portuguese. English forces also assisted the Dutch at certain points in the war (though in later decades, English and Dutch would become fierce rivals). Because of the commodity at the center of the conflict, this war would be nicknamed the Spice War.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The outcome was that Portugal successfully repelled Dutch attempts to secure Brazil and Angola while the Dutch were the victors in the Cape of Good Hope and the East Indies, with the exception of Macau which the Portuguese retained, capturing Malacca, Ceylon, the Malabar Coast, and the Moluccas. English ambitions also greatly benefited from the long-standing war between their two main rivals in the Far East (beginning in the late 18th to early 19th century Malacca, Ceylon, and Malabar would become British possessions).


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: Portuguese resentment at Spain, which was perceived as having prioritized its own colonies and neglected the defense of the Portuguese ones, was a major contributing factor to Portugal shaking off Spanish rule in the Portuguese Restoration War, conducted simultaneously with the later stages of the war with the Dutch.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The war lasted from 1602 to 1663, and the main participants were the Kingdom of Portugal and the Republic of the Seven United Provinces.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: Following the 1580 Iberian Union, Portugal was throughout most of the period under Habsburg rule, and the Habsburg Philip II of Spain was battling the Dutch Revolt. Prior to the union of the Portuguese and Spanish Crowns, Portuguese merchants used the Low Countries as a base for the sale of their spices in northern Europe. After the Spaniards gained control of the Portuguese Empire though, they declared an embargo on all trade with the rebellious provinces (see Union of Utrecht). In his efforts to subdue the rebelling provinces, Philip II cut off the Netherlands from the spice markets of Lisbon, making it necessary for the Dutch to send their own expeditions to the sources of these commodities and to take control of the Indies spice trade.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: Like the French and English, the Dutch worked to create a global trade network at the expense of the Iberian kingdoms. The Dutch Empire attacked many territories in Asia under the rule of the Portuguese and Spanish including Formosa, Ceylon, the Philippine Islands, and commercial interests in Japan, Africa (Mina), and South America.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: In 1592, during the war with Spain, an English fleet had captured a large Portuguese galleon off the Azores, the "Madre de Deus", loaded with 900 tons of merchandise from India and China, worth an estimated half a million pounds (nearly half the size of English Treasury at the time). This foretaste of the riches of the East galvanized interest in the region. That same year, Dutch merchants sent Cornelis de Houtman to Lisbon, to gather as much information as he could about the Spice Islands. In 1595, merchant and explorer Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, having traveled widely in the Indian Ocean in the service of the Portuguese, published a travel report in Amsterdam, the "Reys-gheschrift vande navigatien der Portugaloysers in Orienten" ("Report of a journey through the navigations of the Portuguese in the East"). The published report included vast directions on how to navigate ships between Portugal and the East Indies and to Japan. Dutch and British interest fed by new information led to a movement of commercial expansion, and the foundation of the English East India Company in 1600, and Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1602, allowing the entry of chartered companies in the so-called East Indies.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: In 1602, the VOC was founded, with the goal of sharing the costs of the exploration of the East Indies and ultimately re-establishing the spice trade, which generated high profits in the new Republic of the Seven United Provinces and other European countries if the spices were bought at source and their supply could be controlled by a monopoly.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The need of founding the VOC arose because, with the war with Spain and Portugal being united to Spain, the trade would now be directed through the southern low countries (roughly present-day Belgium), which according to the Union of Arras (or Union of Atrecht) were pledged to the Spanish monarch and were Roman Catholic, as opposed to the Dutch Protestant north. This also meant that the Dutch had lost their most profitable trade partner and their most important source of financing the war against Spain. Additionally, the Dutch would lose their distribution monopoly with France, the Holy Roman Empire, and northern Europe.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Portuguese Empire in the Indian Ocean was a traditional thalassocracy that had extended its reach to every major choke point in the ocean. Trade in the area corresponded also to a traditional triangular model whereupon small manufactures would be brought from Europe and traded in Africa for gold and several items, then these would serve to purchase spices in India proper which were then brought back to Europe and traded at immense profit which would be reinvested into ships and troops, to be sent eastwards.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Portuguese State of India, headquartered in Goa, was a network of key cities which controlled the maritime trade in the Indian Ocean: Sofala was the base for Portuguese operations in East Africa and was supported by Kilwa to better control the Mozambique Channel; from here, the routes took the trade to Goa which was the hub for the rest of the operations and where the India Convoy ships out of Europe arrived; from Goa, going northwards, the trade would be protected by the North and Adventurers Fleets all the way to Daman and Diu which oversaw the northern trade and the Gulf of Cambay; while the Fleet of the North escorted merchant ships the Adventurers Fleet would also seek to disrupt the Mecca trade between northern India's Muslims and the Arabian Peninsula; the Diu Fleet would then connect the trade to Hormuz which controlled the Persian Gulf routes and interrupted the Basrah-Suez trade; southwards from Goa, the Cape Comorin Fleet would escort the Goa merchants to Calicut and Cochin on the Malabar Coast and to Ceylon and the connection to the Bay of Bengal; in the Bay of Bengal, the most lucrative trade was on the Coromandel Coast where such settlements as São Tomé of Mylapore and Pulicat served as hubs; it was in the Coromandel and Ceylon settlements where the ships out of the Malacca route often laid anchor because they connected the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea; the Malacca Fleet patrolled the Singapore Strait and the routes diverted to Celebes and what is now Indonesia at large in the south, and northwards to China and Japan; China provided silk and china to Macau from where the 'Silver Carrack' connected to Japan where several products were exchanged for Japanese silver.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: At dawn on February 25, 1603, three ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) seized the "Santa Catarina", a Portuguese galleon. It was such a rich prize that its sale proceeds doubled the capital of the VOC. The legality of keeping the prize was questionable under Dutch statute and the Portuguese demanded the return of their cargo. The scandal led to a public judicial hearing and a wider campaign to sway public (and international) opinion. As a result, Hugo Grotius in "The Free Sea" ("Mare Liberum", published 1609) formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory, against the Portuguese "mare clausum" policy, and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade. The 'free seas' provided suitable ideological justification for the Dutch to break the Portuguese monopoly through its formidable naval power.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Portuguese East Indies relied on three (four?) strategic bases: Goa, Bombay-Bassein-Dio, Malacca & Macao. The first connected India with Portugal proper (Ceuta), Malacca connected Goa to the Indian Ocean trade via Cape Comorin and Ceylon; and Macao was the hub for the trade routes stretching from the South China Sea to the Sea of Japan and to the Spice islands, east of New Guinea in Australasia. The other locations were important but not crucial: Including Diu along with the Bombay Harbour (until the English acquisition) controlled the approaches to the smaller Gulf of Cambay and to the larger Arabian Sea as well. Ormus was Portugal's protectorate for a short time, during which it was the keystone of the Persian Gulf trade happening between Persia, Arabia, Mesopotamia& rest of Asia and Africa. If both Diu and Hormuz would fall, that would prevent the Near Eastern markets from being taxed by Portugal, which would deny Lisbon the revenue from the southernmost course of the Silk route. It was a lucrative trade but not as essential to the Indian Oceanic Spice trade network at large. After the fall of Hormuz to the English and Dutch, the Portuguese striking out of their Muscat and Goa bases, led a destructive campaign against Persia's coastline and allied with the Basrah. Eventually, after the Battle of the three islands Persia vied for a cease-fire with the Portuguese to be able to reestablish trade and provided Portugal with a tradepost in Kong. Together with the reestablished Basrah route, this temporarily made up for the loss of Hormuz. The pioneers of the destruction of the Portuguese and Spanish "mare clausum" doctrine were the Dutch in portions of the East Indies.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Dutch East India Company, however, suffered from the same weakness as Portugal: lack of manpower. Thus, a Spanish style colonisation effort was never feasible and only dominion of the seas would allow it to compete. The Portuguese had a century head-start in the region and their empire allowed them access to converted and loyal local populations, which shored-up inland, what naval power could not ensure at sea. Hence, the Dutch directed their efforts to the periphery of the Portuguese empire. Avoiding the Indian coasts, they set up their own headquarters in the southeast Indies, in the city of Jakarta, later known as Batavia.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: This put them safely distant from Goa but opportunistically close to Malacca and the sea lanes connecting the Pacific and Indian Oceans.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Dutch Blockade of Goa between 1604 and 1645 deprived the State of India from a safe connection to Lisbon – and Europe – for the remainder of the war.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Battle of Carracks Island in 1615 off the coast of Malacca, destroyed Portuguese naval power in the Southeast Indies leading to the loss of naval supremacy to the Dutch, in the crucial route between Goa and Macau.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Battle of Hormuz in 1621/2 against the English East India Company resulted in the loss of the fortress of Hormuz to the combined forces of Persia and England which dislodged the Portuguese from the Middle East.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The 1639 expulsion of the Jesuit order (Sakoku) and subsequently the Portuguese, from Nagasaki, also doomed the economic viability of Macau.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Siege of Malacca of 1641, after many attempts, delivered the city to the Dutch and their regional allies, crucially breaking the spinal cord between Goa and the Orient.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: Portuguese establishments were isolated and prone to being picked off one by one, but nevertheless the Dutch only enjoyed mixed success in doing so. Amboina was captured from the Portuguese in 1605, but an attack on Malacca, the Battle of Cape Rachado, the following year narrowly failed in its objective to provide a more strategically located base in the East Indies with favourable monsoon winds. In 1607 and 1608, the Dutch twice failed to subdue the Portuguese stronghold on the Island of Mozambique, due to the close cooperation between the locals and the Portuguese.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Dutch found what they were looking for in Jakarta, conquered by Jan Coen in 1619, later renamed Batavia after the putative Dutch ancestors the Batavians, and which would become the capital of the Dutch East Indies.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: For the next forty-four years, the two cities of Goa and Batavia would fight relentlessly, since they stood as the capital of the Portuguese State of India and the Dutch East India Company's base of operations. With the assistance of the Sultanate of Bijapur the Dutch would even attempt to conquer Goa itself, but Portuguese diplomacy defeated this plan.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: In fact, Goa had been under intermittent blockade since 1603. Most of the fighting took place in west India, where the Dutch "Malabar campaign" sought to replace the Portuguese monopoly on the spice trade. Dutch and Portuguese fleets faced off for control of the sea lanes as was the case with the action of 30 September 1639, while on mainland India the war involved more and more Indian kingdoms and principalities as the Dutch capitalised on local resentment of Portuguese conquests in the early 16th century. In 1624, Fernando de Silva led a Spanish fleet to sack a Dutch ship near the Siamese shoreline. This enraged Songtham, King of Siam, whom held the Dutch in great preference and ordered the attacks and seizures of all the Spaniards.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: War between Philip's possessions and other countries led to a deterioration of the Portuguese Empire, as the loss of Hormuz to Persia, aided by England, but the Dutch Empire was the main beneficiary.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: In 1640 the Portuguese took advantage of the Catalan Revolt and themselves revolted from the Spanish-dominated Iberian Union. From this point onwards the English decided instead to re-establish their alliance with Portugal.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: Despite the Portuguese proclaiming themselves as hostile to the Spanish crown, the VOC nevertheless took the opportunity to prise away the string of coastal fortresses that comprised the Portuguese Empire: Malacca finally succumbed in 1641.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: Important battles also took place in the South China Sea, initially with combined fleets of Dutch and English vessels, and subsequently exclusively Dutch ships assaulting Macau. Dutch attempts to capture Macau, to force China to replace the Portuguese or to settle the Pescadores failed, in part because of the long-standing diplomacy between the Portuguese and the Ming, but the Dutch were ultimately successful in acquiring the monopoly of trade with Japan. Meanwhile, the Dutch were unable in four attempts to capture Macau from where Portugal monopolised the lucrative China–Japan trade.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Dutch established a colony at Tayouan in 1624, present-day Anping in the south of Taiwan, known to the Portuguese as Formosa and in 1642 the Dutch took northern Formosa from the Spanish by force.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Dutch intervened in the Sinhalese–Portuguese War on Ceylon from 1638 onwards, initially as allies of the Kingdom of Kandy against Portugal. The Dutch conquered Batticaloa in 1639 and Galle in 1640 before the alliance broke down. After a period of triangular warfare between the Dutch, Portuguese, and Kandyans, the alliance was remade in 1649. After exploiting and then double-crossing their Kandyan allies, the Dutch were able to capture Colombo in 1656 and drove the last Portuguese from Ceylon in 1658. Sporadic warfare with Kandy continued for over a century.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: In the aftermath of the destruction of the 'Tordesillas system', Portugal had managed to retain Diu but not Hormuz. Goa and Macau had also survived but not Malacca. Nevertheless, the downfall of the Portuguese Indian empire was not territorial but economic: the competition of other European powers whose demographics were more numerous, access to capital easier, and access to markets more direct than Portugal's. Lisbon's distributive monopoly had been stolen from the Islamic world and accrued of more direct competition, it crumbled quickly.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: In all, and also because the Dutch were kept busy with their expansion in Indonesia, the conquests made at the expense of the Portuguese were modest: some Indonesian possessions and a few cities and fortresses in Southern India. The most important blow to the Portuguese eastern empire would be the conquest of Malacca in 1641 (depriving them of the control over these straits), Ceylon in 1658, and the Malabar coast in 1663, even after the signing of the peace Treaty of The Hague (1661).


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: Surprised by such easy gains in the East, the Republic quickly decided to exploit Portugal's weakness in the Americas. In 1621 the "Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie" (Authorised West India Company or WIC) was created to take control of the sugar trade and colonise America (the New Netherland project). The Company benefited from a large investment in capital, drawing on the enthusiasm of the best financiers and capitalists of the Republic. The Dutch West India Company would not, however, be as successful as its eastern counterpart.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Dutch invasion began in 1624 with the conquest of the then capital of the State of Brazil, the city of São Salvador da Bahia, but the Dutch conquest was short lived. In 1625, a joint Spanish–Portuguese fleet of 52 ships and 12,000 men rapidly recaptured Salvador.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: In 1630 the Dutch returned, and captured Olinda and then Recife, renamed "Mauritsstadt", thus establishing the colony of New Holland. The Portuguese commander Matias de Albuquerque retreated his forces inland, to establish a camp dubbed "Arraial do Bom Jesus". Until 1635, the Dutch were unable to harvest sugar due to Portuguese guerrilla attacks, and were virtually confined to the walled perimeter of the cities. Eventually, the Dutch evicted the Portuguese with the assistance of a local landlord named Domingos Fernandes Calabar, but on his retreat to Bahia, Matias de Albuquerque captured Calabar at Porto Calvo, and had him hung for treason.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The Portuguese fought back two Dutch attacks on Bahia in 1638. Nonetheless, by 1641 the Dutch captured São Luís, leaving them in control of northwestern Brazil between Maranhão and Sergipe in the south


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: The capable John Maurice of Nassau was recalled from the governorship of New Holland in 1644 because of excessive expenditure and under suspicion of corruption. Mutual hostility between the Catholic Portuguese and Protestant Dutch, and harsh measures to collect from indebted land-owners who had their estates ravaged in the war, ensured that Portuguese settlers came to resent the authority of the new Dutch administration.


title: Dutch–Portuguese War

text: In 1645, most of Dutch Brazil revolted under the leadership of "mulatto" land-owner João Fernandes Vieira, who proclaimed himself loyal to the Portuguese Crown. WIC forces were defeated at the Battle of Tabocas, virtually confining the Dutch to the fortified urban perimeters of coastal cities, defended by contingents of German and Flemish mercenaries. Still in that year, the Dutch abandoned São Luís. The Second Battle of Guararapes, in 1649, marked the beginning of the end of Dutch occupation of Portuguese Brazil, until their final expulsion from Recife in 1654.