Pedro had come to the throne aged sixteen at the death of his mother Maria II in 1857. As a popular and diligent monarch he attempted modernization of Portuguese infrastructure, especially its roads and appalling sanitation. Portugal's towns and cities were constantly in the grip of cholera or typhoid epidemics. Refusing to leave Lisbon during one such outbreak, Pedro V fell ill and died of cholera, aged twenty-four. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Henry Smith Williams, ed., The Historians' History of the World: Volume X - Spain and Portugal (New York: The Outlook Company, 1904), 557.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
US/the World
