Portugal's National Day is celebrated annually on June 10th to commemorate the death of Portuguese national poet Luís de Camões in 1580. Camões wrote Os Lusíadas, an epic poem celebrating Portugal's history and Age of Discovery that became a symbol of Portuguese nationalism. While Camões' death coincided with Portugal coming under Spanish rule, the date is now celebrated to honor Camões and the Portuguese people worldwide.

1. Portugal’s National Day,
officially
Day of Portugal, Camões, and the Portuguese Communities,
celebrated annually on June 10th.
Although officially observed only in Portugal, Portuguese citizens and emigrants
throughout the world celebrate this holiday. The date commemorates the death
of national literary icon Luís de Camões on June 10, 1580.

2. Honoring Camões
Camões wrote Os Lusíadas (usually translated as The Lusiads), Portugal's national epic
poem celebrating Portuguese history and achievements. The poem focuses mainly on
the 15th-century Portuguese explorations, which brought fame and fortune to the
country. The poem, considered one of the finest and most important works
in Portuguese literature, became a symbol for the great feats of the Portuguese
Empire.

3. Camões was an adventurer, known as a Crack-Strong in his student times, who lost
one eye fighting in Ceuta, wrote the poem while traveling, and survived a shipwreck
in Cochinchina (a region of present-day Vietnam). According to popular folklore,
Camões saved his epic poem by swimming with one arm while keeping the other arm
above water. Since his date of birth is unknown, his date of death is celebrated as
Portugal's National Day.

4. The first reading of the Lusíadas was made by the author himself, perhaps in a clearing
of the forest of Sintra, before El-Rei D. Sebastião. We heard this great epic, compared
to Homer, Virgiland Dante - the king and courtiers only had ears for the poet. It is said
that "shut up for them the birds of the sky that filled of colorful chilrets the trees of
Sintra, the whispering waters were silent, the fast winds suspended the messy
flight..."
Although Camões became a symbol for Portugal nationalism, his death coincided with
the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580 that eventually resulted in Philip II of
Spain claiming the Portuguese throne. Portugal was then ruled by three generations
of Spanish kings during the Iberian Union (1580–1640). On 1 December 1640, the
country regained its independence once again by expelling the Spanish during
the Portuguese Restoration War and making John of Bragança, King John IV of
Portugal.
During the authoritarian Estado Novo regime in the 20th century, Camões was used as
a symbol for the Portuguese nation. In 1944, at the dedication ceremony of
the National Stadium in Oeiras (near Lisbon), Prime Minister of Portugal António de
Oliveira Salazar referred to 10 June as Day of the Portuguese Race. The notion of a
Portuguese "race" served his nationalist purposes.
Portugal Day celebrations were officially suspended during the Carnation Revolution in
1974. Celebrations resumed after 1974 and were expanded to include the Portuguese
Communities, Portuguese emigrants and their descendants living in communities all
around the world.