Lisbon

The 14th century was hard on Lisbon. Earthquakes in 1344 and 1356 each brought down part of the cathedral, and the Black Death of 1348 killed about half the population. Then King Ferdinand I died in 1383 without a son, and Castile claimed the crown. Lisbon's merchants feared that union with Castile would cut their trade with England and northern Europe, so they backed the Master of Avis. The city held out against a Castilian siege in 1384, the victory at Aljubarrota followed in 1385, and the Master was crowned John I, with a new nobility drawn from Lisbon's merchant families around him.

The dynasty they raised turned the city toward the ocean. Once Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498, the spices of the East, the sugar of Brazil and the slaves of Africa all passed through Lisbon's quays, and the riches paid for the ornate Manueline stonework of the Jerónimos Monastery and the Tower of Belém on the riverbank. That city ended on All Saints' Day 1755, when an earthquake, a tsunami and days of fire killed some 30,000 to 40,000 people and destroyed most of its buildings. The Marquis of Pombal had the lower town rebuilt from nothing, on a grid of straight streets running from the Rossio down to the great riverside square of the Praça do Comércio.