Importance in Modern Times
Today, as both countries are members of the European Union and NATO, their relations are largely coordinated through those institutions rather than by the provisions of the many treaties forming the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance.
Historically, the alliance was defining and crucial for determining the borders of Brazil, a large Portuguese-speaking territory in South America, which differentiated itself from its Spanish-speaking neighbors as the United Kingdom took an important role in sponsoring Portugal against Spain in that region.
Read more about this topic: Anglo-Portuguese Alliance
Famous quotes containing the words modern times, importance, modern and/or times:
“Tried by a New England eye, or the more practical wisdom of modern times, they are the oracles of a race already in its dotage; but held up to the sky, which is the only impartial and incorruptible ordeal, they are of a piece with its depth and serenity, and I am assured that they will have a place and significance as long as there is a sky to test them by.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“It is obvious that all sense has gone out of modern marriage: which is, however, no objection to marriage but to modernity.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)