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Largo do Caldas (now Largo Adelino Amaro da Costa), with the national headquarters of the CDS, in 2015. Rachimbourg, CC BY-SA 4.0

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A pale four-storey Pombaline building, with iron balconies and flags at the door, in front of a paved square with a few people passing.
Largo do Caldas (now Largo Adelino Amaro da Costa), with the national headquarters of the CDS, in 2015. Rachimbourg, CC BY-SA 4.0

Santa Maria Maior

Largo do Caldas / Rua da Madalena

Here, on May Day 1962, the police fired bursts of machine-gun fire at the demonstrators and killed the typographer Estêvão Giro, aged 25.

Today: Largo Adelino Amaro da Costa
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History

May Day (1 May) 1962 was one of the largest demonstrations against the dictatorship, bringing workers’ and students’ mobilisation together, in the middle of the academic crisis. The demonstrators gathered at various points in the city, and there were clashes in the Terreiro do Paço, the Carmo, the Rossio, Martim Moniz and Alcântara.1

Around Rua da Madalena and Largo do Caldas, demonstrators and police forces clashed, and the police fired bursts of machine-gun fire. Estêvão José Dangues Giro, a typographer from Alcochete, who is said to have had links to the PCP, was fatally hit. He was 25.1

As the Aljube Museum points out, the killing took place “very close to the Aljube”, the PIDE’s political prison, and a few days after two miners had been killed in Aljustrel, at the end of April.2

The repression combined the riot police, the GNR, the PIDE and the Portuguese Legion, and only late into the night did the authorities manage to regain control of the situation.1

Notes on the sources2
  • O ponto exato onde Estêvão Giro caiu, no troço entre a Rua da Madalena e o Largo do Caldas: o testemunho publicado pelo Memória Comum não o precisa.
  • Idade: o Museu do Aljube diz que tinha 25 anos, mas indica 1937 como ano de nascimento (o que daria 24 ou 25 anos, consoante a data).

Do you know more, or do you have a document? Tell us.

Sources4
  1. 1Estêvão José Dangues Giro (Alcochete, 1937 – Lisboa, 01-05-1962). Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade — consulted on 2 October 2026
  2. 2Manifestação de apoio a Eurico Figueiredo. Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade (EGEAC) — consulted on 2 October 2026
  3. 3Estêvão José Dangues Giro. Memória Comum – Memorial aos Presos e Perseguidos Políticos — consulted on 4 October 2026Com o testemunho presencial de Adalberto Ribeiro, conta que caiu baleado no Largo e Rua da Madalena e que outros manifestantes o levaram para o posto médico das traseiras da Associação dos Empregados do Comércio, no Largo do Caldas, onde chegou já morto.
  4. 4O pombalino Largo do Caldas e o Largo Adelino Amaro da Costa dos anos 80. Toponímia de Lisboa (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa), 2017 — consulted on 4 October 2026O Largo do Caldas chama-se oficialmente Largo Adelino Amaro da Costa desde o edital de 5 de abril de 1982, na sequência de uma proposta aprovada em reunião de Câmara a 22 de dezembro de 1980.

Coordinates: OpenStreetMap (Nominatim), consultado a 2 de outubro de 2026.

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