WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO… Portugal

Anyone who saw “Slumdog Millionaire” is familiar with actress Freida Pinto. When I learned her name I thought “Oh, they must have cast a Puerto Rican girl who looked Indian. And then a friend told me that Portuguese names are common in one part of India because of Portugal’s past influence there. Then it made me ask myself: “What ever happened to Portugal?”

The country just smaller than Indiana controlled the first global empire in the world. They rounded horns and circumnavigated globes. They had names like Vasco and Ferdinand. Everyone wanted to be a part of Team Portugal. In 1485 and 1488 Christopher Columbus pitched his voyage to King John II of Portugal and struck out both times. Portugal didn’t need some Genoan hack with a portfolio full of miscalculations that would lead him to a world away from where he said he would end up. If they had said yes, it would be Portuguese I’d regret never having learned in all my years in Southern California.

Now I bet there’s not a single “Jeopardy!” writer who can name Portugal’s current king or Prime Minister or President or whatever ruling format they’ve settled on. I actually did a web search for Portugal and Google asked me “did you mean ‘porthole’?”

To add insult to injury, Portugal’s largest former colony was selected to host the Olympics before they were. It was clearly a network decision. Lesson one in television is that Lisbon is a ratings killer, as is Chicago, apparently.

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