Portal:Biography/Selected biography government/13

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Dom Pedro I (12 October 1798 – 24 September 1834) was the founder and first ruler of the Empire of Brazil. As King Dom Pedro IV, he reigned briefly over Portugal, before a French invasion in 1807 led him to flee to Brazil. The outbreak of the Liberal Revolution of 1820 in Lisbon compelled Pedro I's father to return to Portugal in April 1821, leaving him to rule Brazil as regent, where he had to subdue revolutionaries and insubordination by Portuguese troops. The Portuguese government's threat to revoke the political autonomy that Brazil had enjoyed since 1808 was met with widespread discontent in Brazil. Pedro I chose the Brazilian side and declared Brazil's independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822. On 12 October, he was acclaimed Brazilian emperor and by March 1824 had defeated all armies loyal to Portugal. He would go on to invade Portugal in July 1832. Caught up in a larger ideological conflict between Liberalism and Absolutism, Pedro I died of tuberculosis just a few months after he and the liberals had emerged victorious.