Duarte Leite Pereira da Silva, GCC (11 August 1864 in

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

– 29 September 1950 in

; ), was a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

historian, mathematician, journalist, diplomat and politician. He graduated in Mathematics at the

University of Coimbra The University of Coimbra (UC; pt, Universidade de Coimbra, ) is a public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coimbra in 1537. The u ...

, in 1885. He taught at the Politecnic Academy of Porto, from 1886 to 1911. Meanwhile, he was also the director of the newspaper diary "''A Pátria''". As a historian, he published many studies, later compiled in "''História dos Descobrimentos''" (History of the Discoveries), in 2 volumes.

Political career

After the overthrow of the Portuguese monarchy in 1910, he was Minister of Finance during the Augusto de Vasconcelos government (1911–1912), and succeeded him, as

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

and Minister of Internal Affairs, from 16 June 1912 to 9 January 1913. From 1914 to 1931 he served as Portuguese ambassador to Brazil. He was a candidate to the Presidency of the Republic in the elections held in the Congress of the Republic, in 1925. Faithful all his life to his left-wing republican principles, he became a member of the 1945–48

Movement of Democratic Unity The Movement of Democratic Unity ( pt, Movimento de Unidade Democrática or MUD) was a quasi-legal platform of Portuguese democratic organizations that opposed the authoritarian regime of António de Oliveira Salazar and was founded in October 1945 ...

, which during its brief lifespan functioned as the first form of legalized opposition to Salazar's far-right ''Estado Novo'' (New State) regimen.

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1864 births 1950 deaths People from Porto Portuguese Republican Party politicians Prime Ministers of Portugal Finance ministers of Portugal Government ministers of Portugal Ambassadors of Portugal to Brazil Portuguese anti-fascists 20th-century Portuguese historians Portuguese journalists Male journalists University of Coimbra alumni {{Portugal-writer-stub