In Coimbra nobody can forget 1969 and the Academic Crisis. In that same year, the students of Coimbra and the president of the Associação Académica de Coimbra stood up against the regime imposed years before by Salazar,demanding more rights for the students.
Defying all rules, Alberto Martins asked to speak during Marcello Caetano’s visit to the University of Coimbra, challenging Salazar’s successor. The request was denied, leading to his arrest a few hours later and to the beginning of the crisis that changed Coimbra’s history forever.
Even Académica, the city’s own football team, joined the protest days later. The students went to Lisbon to play against Sporting in Alvalade, within the semi-finals of the Portugal Cup. The team stepped into the field wearing black armbands, representing the death of liberty, and everything changed. The protests kept going strong and the relationship between students and politicians continued to deteriorate until 1974, the year of the revolution.
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