Salazar becomes President of the Council of Ministers

António de Oliveira Salazar (28 April 1889 – 27 July 1970) was a Portuguese statesman who served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He was responsible for the Estado Novo ("New State"), the corporatist authoritarian government that ruled Portugal until 1974.

A trained economist, Salazar entered public life with the support of President Óscar Carmona after the Portuguese coup d'état of 28 May 1926, initially as finance minister and later as prime minister. Opposed to democracy, communism, socialism, anarchism and liberalism, Salazar's rule was conservative and nationalist in nature. Salazar distanced himself from fascist dictatorships, which he considered a pagan Caesarist political system that recognised neither legal nor moral limits. Salazar viewed German Nazism as espousing pagan elements that he considered repugnant. Salazar also promoted Catholicism, but argued that the role of the Church was social, not political, and negotiated the Concordat of 1940. One of the mottos of the Salazar regime was "Deus, Pátria e Família" (meaning "God, Fatherland, and Family").