from a monarchy in decline and itself lasted only sixteen years until 1926. Under the Republic, parliamentary institutions worked poorly, and political and economic power remained concentrated. Corruption and economic mismanagement were widespread. The Republican leadership took Portugal into World War I with significant expenditure and loss of life. A military coup d'état ended the First Republic in 1926. This was the beginning of a dictatorship that evolved into the Estado Novo regime. In the early 1960s, independence movements in the Portuguese overseas provinces of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea in Africa, resulted in the Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974). Throughout the colonial war period Portugal had to deal with increasing dissent, arms embargoes and other punitive sanctions imposed by most of the international community. In April 1974 a bloodless left-wing military coup in Lisbon, known as the Carnation Revolution, would lead the way for a modern democracy as well as the independence of the last colonies in Africa, after two years of a transitional period known as PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso, or On-Going Revolutionary Process), characterized by social turmoil and power disputes between left- and right-wing political forces. These events left Portugal on the brink of a civil war and made it a fertile ground for radicalism. Some factions, including Álvaro Cunhal's PCP, unsuccessfully tried to turn the country toward communism. The retreat from the colonies and the acceptance of its independence terms which would create newly independent communist states in 1975 (most notably the People's Republic of Angola and the People's Republic of Mozambique) prompted a mass exodus of Portuguese citizens from Portugal's African territories (mostly from Portuguese Angola and Mozambique), creating over a million destitute Portuguese refugees — the retornados. The country continued to be governed by a military-civilian provisional administration until the Portuguese legislative election of 1976. See also Processo Revolucionário Em Curso governing bodies References External links BBC website article on Portuguese revolution A huge resource of newspaper articles from across Europe in 1974 and after EU website AFP article on thirtieth anniversary of Portuguese revolution Portugal Timeline on history website 1970s in Portugal Carnation Revolution Provisional governments