ANZAC Day - Lest we forget

April 25th marks an important day for Australia and New Zealand to honour and remember the sacrifice of our soldiers - ANZAC Day

ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and occurs on the 25th of April as the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand Forces during the First World War (Landing at Gallipoli).

Sometimes i think we fail to remember as much as we should maybe partly because the war was fought away from our homes.

In that respect i would like to thank my French and Belgian friends - for the efforts of their country men and women in keeping alive the memories, stories and honouring of our ANZACS.

In Belgium for example, whilst in Australia for many of us its one of the few times in a year we will hear the sound of the bugler playing the Last Post. In Ieper in Belgium it is a sound that has played every night since 1928 at 8 in the evening to remember not just the ANZACS but also those of the wider allied forces.

In France there are many towns and villages that keep the memories and stories alive. From the many schools that learn the stories in history and those that keep treasured momentos and memorials.
A few years ago for instance nearly 4000 photographic glass negatives (silver) were recovered from storage in a metal chest in a dusty attic in a small farmhouse in France. Due to their mostly excellent condition prints were able to be made from these which were distributed to the descendants of those in the photographs. These photographs were in many cases the last for many of these soldiers.

So i just want to say thanks to Belgium and France.
Lest we Forget

Lest we forget.

great words mj

This is a very important date to Portugal as well. On this date, 40 years ago, Portugal started a Democracy because of the revolution that happened that day.

We also started a process of abandoning our African Colonies. You know i'm directly involved with one of them, Mozambique. They were the best evolved colonies on the entire world, even better evolved than it's ''motherland'' Portugal. 40 years later i'm sad that they couldn't continue the work that Portugal started there as the countries are, almost all of them, completely distroyed. In Maputo, Mozambique's capital, the buildings of that time are the same as today but all of them mistreated and some completely abandoned. I know Portugal did take a lot of richness from there, gold, coal, wood, silver a lot of it. But we did left all of the work behind and finished when we left. They weren't ready to take it that time. If they would have thought about it then, today Africa could be a lot different. South Africa for example was YEARS back of Mozambique in Development and where are they now? 100 years ahead.

This is the revolution that happened 25th of April 1974:

(COPY / PASTE)

The Carnation Revolution or Revolução dos Cravos was a largely bloodless coup which occurred in the nation of Portugal in 1974. The result of the Carnation Revolution was the toppling of a dictatorship which had prevailed for almost 50 years. After a brief period of turmoil, Portugal emerged as a democratic country, to the great delight of many of its citizens and the world in general.

The history of this event began in 1926, when a military coup established the Estado Novo, overthrowing the nascent First Republic of Portugal, a democratic government which had replaced Portugal's monarchy in 1910. Portuguese citizens chafed under the Estado Novo, but the end of this regime was ultimately brought about by the actions of the military, rather than the citizens. Military officers with left-wing inclinations masterminded their coup d'état in response to the sacking of a Portuguese general who spoke out against Portuguese colonial policy.

In the early hours of 25 April 1974, the Carnation Revolution began in the Portuguese city of Lisbon. The military forces quickly overwhelmed the government, sparking spontaneous demonstrations in the street, in which civilians ran out to mingle with the soldiers, despite orders to stay inside. At the time, carnations were flooding the famous central flower market of Lisbon, and many citizens put them into the gun barrels of the soldiers, inspiring the name “Carnation Revolution” to describe this event in Portuguese history.

In February 1974, Caetano determined to remove General António Spínola in the face of increasing dissent by Spinola over the promotion of military officers and the direction of Portuguese colonial policy. At this point, several left-wing military officers who opposed the war formed a conspiracy - the Movimento das Forças Armadas (MFA, "Armed Forces Movement"), to overthrow the government by military coup. The MFA was headed by Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho and joined by Salgueiro Maia. The movement was significantly aided by other officers in the Portuguese army who supported Spinola and democratic civil and military reform. Some observers have speculated that Francisco da Costa Gomes actually led the revolution.