1961 — Angola's Armed Struggle Begins

On February 4, 1961, MPLA militants stormed police stations and the São Paulo prison in Luanda, trying to free political prisoners. Around forty militants died in the raids. These were the opening shots of Angola's armed struggle for independence from Portugal.

The attacks were revenge for the Baixa de Cassanje massacre weeks earlier. The war that began that day ground on for thirteen years, ending only with Portugal's 1974 Carnation Revolution. Angola still marks February 4 as the Day of the Armed Struggle, remembering the morning a prison break became the first act of a long liberation war. It remains a date Angola sets apart from all the war's later years.