From 1341, with the first expedition to the Canary Islands, and with expeditions to India, Brazil and Japan, the Portuguese people opened his vision towards the unknown world. In addition to accessing the goods that began to be traded (gold, silver, spices, silk, sugar and slaves), Portugal also came out of its shell and had a taste for building an empire for the first time in its history. history. Eager to conquer new lands, besides the overseas colonies, the young king Sebastião undertook an expedition to Africa, but he died during the Battle of Alcácer Quibir on August 4, 1578, and thus the conquest of Africa failed. . After the death of the king, the succession crisis broke out and King Philip II of Spain peacefully incorporated Portugal into Spain by attracting the Portuguese nobility and part of the clergy. During the period of the United Iberian Peninsula between 1580 and 1640, which followed the golden age of the descobrimentos, Portugal was under the sovereignty of the Spanish crown, but maintained an independent law, currency, and government. In the meantime, the Portuguese nobility began to lose power and several Portuguese colonial properties came under the administration of the Dutch government. These events gave rise to a period of restoration and an effort for independence from Spanish sovereignty. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In order to fuel this restoration effort, the myth of Sebastianismo was introduced into society. It was believed in the country that one day, on a foggy morning, the Portuguese king Dom Sebastião, who disappeared during the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, would return to Portugal to lead the country into a new era of prosperity, just like the belief that One day Jesus will return to Earth to save humanity once and for all. In his epic poems, Luís Camões honored Portugal's past glory by celebrating Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India and emphasized the higher purpose of Portuguese civilization. The book was structured into themes based on its content. In the first theme the poem refers to the discovery of Vasco da Gama, in the second theme to the history of Portugal, in the third theme to the Portuguese people and heroes and in the fourth theme to mythology. As an example of classical epic poetry, “Os Lusíadas” appears to draw inspiration from Greek culture. The following verses are taken from Os Lusíadas: “These are the stories of incomparable weapons and men / Who set sail from the west coast of Portugal / And marched to Taprobana and beyond / Through the oceans whom none had braved before, / And in battles and crises took place their own, / Relying on more than human skill, in war / Among a distant people, to bring the name / Of one New Kingdom and earn him immortal fame.” The belief of Sebastianismo was also strongly reflected in the poems of the books. Message from Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa. In these poems he defended the belief that whatever happened to Portugal, the king would return and the country would recover. Like the ideal of Sebastianism, the ideal of O Quinto Império, introduced into society by the Camões, continued to fuel society to keep alive the spirit of one day founding an empire again. The Jesuit priest António Vieira also believed that after the great empires led by Nebuchadnezzar (Babylon or Assyrians), Cyrus (Persia), Pericles (Greece) and Caesar (Rome), the Fifth Empire will be led by the king of Portugal and will unite the Christian world. He also emphasized the importance of history in his series of.