50 Years of the 25 de Abril Bridge

A depiction of the 25 de Abril Bridge. Above: the country name "PORTUGAL" with coat of arms; below: the inscriptions "PONTE" and "25 DE ABRIL", the dates "1966" and "2016", the mintmark "INCM" and the designer's name "JOSÉ AURÉLIO".

The 25 April Bridge is, for Portugal, far more than a piece of infrastructure: it stands as a physical symbol of the country's democratic new beginning. The suspension bridge over the Tagus was opened in 1966 under the Salazar dictatorship, still under the name Ponte Salazar. After the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, which ended the authoritarian Estado Novo regime, it was renamed Ponte 25 de Abril - after the date that marks Portugal's transition to democracy. With a main span of around 1,013 metres, it was among the longest suspension bridges in the world at the time of its completion and has since connected Lisbon with the southern bank of the Tagus at Almada. It was designed by the American engineering firm United States Steel; its resemblance to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is no coincidence.

In Portugal's collective memory, the bridge is inseparably linked to 25 April: revolutionary soldiers erected roadblocks on it that night, and images of this are among the iconic documents of recent Portuguese history. Today hundreds of thousands of people cross the bridge daily, which is also indispensable for the economic integration of the greater Lisbon region - in 1999 a railway level was additionally integrated into the structure. Portugal took the 50th anniversary of the Ponte 25 de Abril in 2016 as the occasion to issue a 2-euro commemorative coin linking the country's infrastructure with its democratic culture of remembrance.