A few hours ago I was reading the 1st Institutional Act (AI-1) and I got thinking about the distinction between coups and revolutions and Mike Duncan's division between social and political revolutions.
The big trouble here is that the military's power grab was seen as illegitimate by a lot of people both then and now.
However our military did have significant civil support including the now infamous "Marches of the Family with God for Freedom".
I'm tempted to claim that what happened back in April 1st 1964 was both a coup d'etat and a political revolutions. Our political system did change massively afterwards but there were no big fundamental social changes, only more repression for the status quo.
Or to sumarise it with a couple Portuguese words: what happened back when was a "revolução golpista".
#BrazilianHistory #GolpeMilitar1964 #AtoInstitucional