Portugal

On 9 May 1386, England and Portugal ratified the Treaty of Windsor, beginning the oldest diplomatic alliance still in force. Six centuries later, it was still working - helping to win the Second World War.

On 22 April 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral sighted a mountain on the Brazilian coast and claimed it for Portugal. The territory had already been assigned to his king six years earlier, by a line drawn through an ocean that no one could accurately locate.

On 3 February 1488, Bartolomeu Dias landed at Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope. Twenty-one years later to the day, Portuguese cannon settled who would rule the Indian Ocean.

On 22 January 1808, the Portuguese royal court arrived in Brazil after fleeing Napoleon. The colony became the empire's capital, Britain got the trade access it had always wanted, and Portugal spent a decade governing itself from the wrong continent.