Little dinky low population country that sticks out like a sore thumb on Spain’s map.
In 1580 their royal line died out and the King of Spain claimed the throne, unifying the Iberians for 60 years. As far as I’m concerned that should have been it for Portugal.

Their culture can’t be that different (and in fact it isn’t) from Spain and they are not that nationalistic, over 30% of their total population immigrated to Brazil in the 18th and 19th century and that doesn’t include immigration to their African colonies. It is even ridiculous that they have a different language. Somebody should have cleaned that up long ago.

It’s not like the Europeans were peace loving people back then. You would figure that some of them would have figured that Monroe had something with his Doctrine, and would have ate up not only Portugal but a lot of other little countries that litter their map.

I’m a big believer in States rights but how many of our States would be third world countries left on their own. There would have to have been consolidations among the poorer areas.

I think this Portugal thing is a big part of the problem in Europe.