500 Escudos 1970, Angola
| in Krause book | Number: 97 |
| Years of issue: | 10.06.1970 |
| Edition: | |
| Signatures: | Governador: Mario Angelo Morais Oliveira (1969-1975), Vice-Governador: Nuno Alves Morgado (1970-1975) |
| Serie: | 1970 Issue |
| Specimen of: | 10.06.1970 |
| Material: | Cotton fiber |
| Size (mm): | 150 х 76 |
| Printer: | Thomas de la Rue and coy, LTD, Londres |
* All pictures marked 
are increased partially by magnifying glass, the remaining open in full size by clicking on the image.
** The word "Specimen" is present only on some of electronic pictures, in accordance with banknote images publication rules of appropriate banks.
Description
Watermark:
Angolan Women.
Avers:
Engraving on banknote is made after this photo of Americo Tomaz.
Américo de Deus Rodrigues Thomaz, GCC, GOA, GOSE (November 19, 1894 - September 18, 1987). He was a Portuguese admiral and politician. Also the 13th President of Portugal.When, on April 25, 1974, the "Carnation Revolution" deposed Caetano, Thomaz was also overthrown and sent to exile in Brazil. He was allowed to return to Portugal in 1980, but he was denied readmission into the Portuguese Navy and the special pension scheme currently in place for former Presidents of the Republic.
Américo de Deus Rodrigues Tomás was born in Lisbon to his parents António Rodrigues Tomás and Maria da Assunção Marques.
He married Gertrudes Ribeiro da Costa in October 1922. The couple had two children, Maria Natália Rodrigues Tomás (born 1925) and Maria Madalena Rodrigues Tomás (born 1930).
Tomás entered high school at Lapa, Portugal in 1904, completing his secondary education in 1911. He then attended the Faculty of Sciences for two years (1912–1914), after which he joined the Naval Academy as a midshipman.
After Tomás graduated from the Naval Academy in 1916, he was assigned to the Portuguese coast escort service on Vasco da Gama and later assigned to the Pedro Nunes and the destroyers Douro and Tejo during World War I. In 1918, he received a promotion to Lieutenant.
On 17 March 1920 he was placed on the survey vessel 5 de Outubro, where he served for the next sixteen years. During this time, he was assigned to the survey mission of the Portuguese coast and was a board member of the Technical Commission for Hydrography, Navigation and Nautical Meteorology and a member of the Council for Studies of Oceanography and Fisheries. Tomás was also a member of the International Permanent Council for the Exploration of the Sea.
Tomás was appointed chief of staff to the Minister of the Navy in 1936, President of the Merchant Marine National Junta from 1940 to 1944, and Minister of the Navy from 1944 to 1958.
During his term as Minister of the Navy, he was responsible for the total reconstruction of the Portuguese commercial navy organized under Dispatch 100. Fifty six ships were ordered, with a total of more than 300,000 tons of displacement. The dispatch included statutes that also allowed the formation of what is now the modern shipbuilding industry in Portugal. Tomás' actions while serving as Minister of the Navy won him a positive reputation in the marine community, unlike the infamy acquired by several of his colleagues in the Portuguese Armed Forces (FAP) and the Portuguese government during their respective tenures.
In 1958, Tomás was chosen by then-Prime Minister António Salazar as the candidate of the ruling National Union party for the presidency of the republic, succeeding Francisco Craveiro Lopes. He ran against the opposition - backed Humberto Delgado. It initially appeared that the election ended as soon as Tomás was nominated, since the electoral system was so heavily rigged in favour of the National Union that he could not possibly be defeated. However, in an unusually spirited contest, Tomás was ultimately credited with 76.4 percent of the vote to Delgado's 23.5 percent. Most neutral observers believed, however, that Delgado would have won had the election been honest. Salazar was alarmed enough that he pushed through a constitutional amendment transferring election of the president to the legislature, which was firmly controlled by the regime. Tomás was re-elected by the legislature in 1965 as the only candidate.
Although vested with sweeping - almost dictatorial - powers on paper, in practice Tomás was little more than a figurehead for his first decade in power. For most of the existence of the Estado Novo, Salazar, as prime minister, held the real power. Indeed, Salazar had chosen him because Craveiro Lopes had shown an independent streak that Salazar didn't like. Tomás' virtual powerlessness in office under Salazar made him little more than a decorative figure at inaugurations and festivities. This, together with a natural ineptitude for speech - making, also made him a target of frequent jokes.
Tomás used his presidential prerogative just once during his first decade in office. In September 1968, Salazar was incapacitated by a severe stroke. Believing that Salazar did not have long to live, Tomás dismissed Salazar and appointed Marcello Caetano to succeed him. For all intents and purposes, the president’s power to dismiss the prime minister had been the only check on Salazar's power. However, he never informed Salazar that he had been removed as leader of the regime he had largely created. Reportedly, when Salazar died two years later, he believed still that he was prime minister.
Tomás took a much more active role in the government after Caetano took power. While he had given Salazar more or less a free hand, he was not willing to do the same for Caetano. Eventually, Tomás became the rallying point for hardliners who opposed Caetano’s efforts to open up the regime. Caetano’s reforms did not go nearly far enough for a populace that had no memory of the instability and chaos that had preceded Salazar. For instance, he left the presidential election in the hands of the regime - dominated legislature, which re-elected Tomás unopposed in 1972. However, Caetano had to expend nearly all of his political capital to wrangle even these meagre reforms out of Tomás and the hardliners, and was in no position to resist when Tomás and the other hardliners forced the end of the reform experiment a year later.
Tomás, unlike his predecessor, lived in his private residence while President of the Republic, using the Belém Palace only as an office and for official ceremonies.
On 25 April 1974, The Carnation Revolution ended 48 years of authoritarian rule in Portugal. After being removed from power, Tomás was exiled to Brazil; he was allowed to return to Portugal in 1980, but was denied reädmission into the Portuguese Navy and the special pension for former Presidents of the Republic.
Americo Tomás died at age 92 in a Cascais clinic from complications after a surgery. 
In center is Luanda's port.
As major port city for Angola in the XVI century, Luanda became the center for commercial, political, and cultural affairs. The Portuguese also used Luanda as their major slave trading port until 1836. The end of slave trading caused a temporary decrease in Luanda’s economy and export activity but by the 1840s, the city exported palm and peanut oil, timber, ivory, cotton, coffee, tobacco, and cocoa. Throughout the late XIX and early XX centuries Colonial Portuguese authorities invested in port and rail infrastructure to expand agricultural and mineral exports. (BlackPast.org)
At the top is old coat of arms, used between 1951 - 1975.
Emblem colony Angola was approved in 1935. It was made in the same style all Portuguese overseas possessions:
The shield is divided into three parts forked - the left side of the three-part shield with five azure shields, each of which had five white Besant (quina, the oldest coat of arms of Portugal) symbolized the metropolis.
Average lower depicting green waves on a silver field - sign overseas possessions of Portugal.
And on the left side was a picture of the actual coat of arms of the colony - in this case - the golden elephant on a zebra on a purple field. Shield superimposed on a golden armillary sphere topped tower crown, decorated with heraldic shields with a red cross of the Order of Christ and small armillary sphere. At the bottom depicted the tape with the title of ownership.
After World War II, Portugal has not followed the example of other countries in Europe and did not grant independence to their colonies. They were declared to be "overseas territories", respectively, in the inscription on the tape the word "colony" was replaced by "province".
Lower right - The Congolese PADRÃO of 1482.
For the purpose of the exploration and annexation of the African Westcoast by the Portuguese in the 15th century, Dom João II gave order to the navigator Diogo Cão to erect a padrão or boundary-post at certain places. This boundary-post is a reconstruction made after fragments preserved by the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, of the padrão erected on the southern bank of the river-mouth of the Zaire, called Punto Padrão and today the northwesternmost point of Angola. The inscription in Portuguese on the monument reads:
"IN THE YEAR 1681 AFTER THE CREATION OF THE WORLD, THE YEAR 1482 AFTER THE BIRTH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE EXALTED, ILLUSTRIOUS AND POWERFUL KING DOM JOÃO OF PORTUGAL GAVE ORDER TO DIOGO CÃO, KNIGHT OF HIS HOUSE, TO DISCOVER THIS LAND AND TO ERECT THESE MEMORIAL PILES".
On the die is the crowned coat of arms of King João II, borne until 1485.
It is: Argent, a cross of five escutcheons Azure, each charged with five roundles Argent in saltire, placed on the cross of the Order of Aviso andd surrounded by a bordure Gules, charged with seven castles Or. The crown is a royal crown of five fleurons and four pearls. The die is surmounted by the latin cross patonce which is the symbol of the religious branch of the Order of Christ.
Denominations in numerals are in top corners.
Revers:
Two South-western black rhinoceros in Prairie.
The south-western black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis occidentalis) is a subspecies of the black rhinoceros, living in southwestern Africa (northern Namibia and southern Angola, introduced to South Africa). It is currently listed as vulnerable by the IUCN. The biggest threat towards the subspecies Diceros bicornis occidentalis is illegal poaching.
This subspecies is often mistaken for either the extinct southern black rhinoceros (D. b. bicornis) or the southeastern subspecies (D. b. minor). However, the populations in the arid areas of northern Namibia and southwestern Angola represent a separate subspecies.
The holotype specimen, a male, was about 16 months old when caught alive by a Mr. Müller in 1914 near the Kunene River (Kaokoveld, border region between Namibia and Angola), and shipped to the Tierpark Hagenbeck, the Hamburg Zoo, in Germany. After its death on 15 October 1916, its hide and skeleton was preserved at the Zoologisches Museum Hamburg (specimen no. 40056) and described as belonging to a new species, Opsiceros occidentalis, by L. Zukowsky in 1922. Opsiceros is an invalid synonym of the genus Diceros.
The south-western black rhino, like all black rhino subspecies, has a distinct prehensile lip and is a browser. Its appearance is similar to other subspecies, the most important difference to them is a relatively broad head behind the eyes and minor features in the dentition. Other characters often mentioned, like body size or the straightness and size of the horns, are subject to individual variation. They also are most adapted to arid habitat and can be found in arid savanna and desert climates.
Historically, this subspecies once roamed in Angola, and Namibia, but their current range has decreased. The stronghold of the species is primarily in Namibia. One to four specimens have been reported from Angola and others were introduced to South Africa. The total population is increasing and numbered to 1920 animals in 2010, with 55.8% adults. Poaching due to increasing horn prices is considered the main threat to the population.
Denominations in numerals are in all corners. Lower in words.
Comments:
In 1482 came the discovery of the modern coast of Angola by Portuguese navigator Diogo Kahn's expedition. Until the middle of the XIX century the main occupation of the Portuguese in Angola was a slave trade. By rough estimates, for three years, the country exported (mainly to Brazil), about 5 million people. Angola, as a whole, had more to do with Brazil and after the establishment of the Brazilian Empire Angolan settlers have repeatedly expressed the desire to join it.
In 1885 - 1894 years Portugal , Belgium, Germany and England enter into agreements that have defined the current borders of Angola.
In the 60th, respectively, in terms of decolonization of most countries on the continent and the growing influence of the national liberation movements in the international arena, in the Portuguese possessions began a process of consolidation of political opponents to colonial rules. In 1961 occurs anti portugese rebellion, led by Holden Roberto ( União dos Povos de Angola, UPA leader of the group, and then Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola, FNLA). They began the war for independence, that lasted 14 years. At the same time begins the opposition between Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, MPLA and Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola, FNLA.
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