Piet Pieterszoon Hein was a Dutch admiral and privateer for the Dutch Republic during the Eighty Years' War. Hein was the first and the last to capture a large part of a Spanish treasure fleet which transported huge amounts of gold and silver from Spanish America to Spain. The amount of silver taken was so big that it resulted in the rise of the price of silver worldwide and the near bankruptcy of Spain.
Nzinga Mbande was Queen of the Ambundu Kingdoms of Ndongo (1624–1663) and Matamba (1631–1663), located in present-day northern Angola. Born into the ruling family of Ndongo, Nzinga received military and political training as a child, and she demonstrated an aptitude for defusing political crises as an ambassador to the Portuguese Empire. She later assumed power over Ndongo after the death of her father and brother, who both served as kings, and would go on to conquer Matamba. She ruled during a period of rapid growth in the African slave trade and encroachment of the Portuguese Empire into South West Africa, in attempts to control the slave trade. Nzinga fought for the independence and stature of her kingdoms against the Portuguese in a reign that lasted 37 years.
Battle of Mbwila was a battle that occurred on 29 October 1665 in which Portuguese forces defeated the forces of the Kingdom of Kongo and decapitated king António I of Kongo, also called Nvita a Nkanga.
The Kingdom of Kongo was a kingdom located in central Africa in present-day northern Angola, the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of the Congo. At its greatest extent it reached from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Kwango River in the east, and from the Congo River in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The kingdom consisted of several core provinces ruled by the Manikongo, the Portuguese version of the Kongo title Mwene Kongo, meaning "lord or ruler of the Kongo kingdom", but its sphere of influence extended to neighbouring kingdoms, such as Ngoyo, Kakongo, Loango, Ndongo and Matamba, the latter two located in what is Angola today.
Dutch Brazil, also known as New Holland, was a colony of the Dutch Republic in the northeastern portion of modern-day Brazil, controlled from 1630 to 1654 during Dutch colonization of the Americas. The main cities of the colony were the capital Mauritsstad, Frederikstadt, Nieuw Amsterdam (Natal), Saint Louis, São Cristóvão, Fort Schoonenborch (Fortaleza), Sirinhaém, and Olinda.
Garcia II Nkanga a Lukeni a Nzenze a Ntumba, also known as Garcia Afonso for short, ruled the Kingdom of Kongo from 23 January 1641 to 1661. He is sometimes considered Kongo's greatest king for his religious piety and his near expulsion of the Portuguese from Angola. Yet, he is also notorious for enriching himself through his leading role in the Atlantic slave trade.
The Dutch–Portuguese War was a global armed conflict involving Dutch forces, in the form of the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company, as well as their allies against the Iberian Union, and after 1640, the Portuguese Empire. Beginning in 1602, the conflict primarily involved the Dutch companies invading Portuguese colonies in the Americas, Africa, and the East Indies. The war can be thought of as an extension of the Eighty Years' War being fought in Europe at the time between Spain and the Netherlands, as Portugal was in a dynastic union with the Spanish Crown after the War of the Portuguese Succession, for most of the conflict. However, the conflict had little to do with the war in Europe and served mainly as a way for the Dutch to gain an overseas empire and control trade at the cost of the Portuguese. English forces also assisted the Dutch at certain points in the war. Because of the commodity at the center of the conflict, this war would be nicknamed the Spice War.
The Portuguese Restoration War was the war between Portugal and Spain that began with the Portuguese revolution of 1640 and ended with the Treaty of Lisbon in 1668, bringing a formal end to the Iberian Union. The period from 1640 to 1668 was marked by periodic skirmishes between Portugal and Spain, as well as short episodes of more serious warfare, much of it occasioned by Spanish and Portuguese entanglements with non-Iberian powers. Spain was involved in the Thirty Years' War until 1648 and the Franco-Spanish War until 1659, while Portugal was involved in the Dutch–Portuguese War until 1663.
The Battle of Kombi was a decisive battle in the war between Ndongo-Matamba and Portugal during the Dutch period of Angolan history.
The Battle of Kitombo was a military engagement between forces of the BaKongo state of Soyo, formerly a province of the Kingdom of Kongo, and the Portuguese colony of Angola on 18 October 1670. Earlier in the year a Portuguese expeditionary force had invaded Soyo with the intention of ending its independent existence. The Soyo were supported by the Kingdom of Ngoyo, which provided men and equipment, and by the Dutch, who provide guns, light cannon and ammunition. The combined Soyo-Ngoyo force was led by Estêvão Da Silva, and the Portuguese by João Soares de Almeida. Both commanders were killed in the battle, which resulted in a decisive victory for Soyo. Few, if any, of the invaders escaped death or capture.
The precolonial history of Angola lasted until Portugal annexed the territory as a colony in 1655.
The colonial history of Angola is usually considered to run from the appearance of the Portuguese under Diogo Cão in 1482 (Congo) or 1484 until the independence of Angola in November 1975. Settlement did not begin until Novais's establishment of São Paulo de Loanda (Luanda) in 1575, however, and the Portuguese government only formally incorporated Angola as a colony in 1655 or on May 12, 1886.
The Battle of Quifangondo was fought on 10 November 1975, near the strategic settlement of Quifangondo, Luanda Province, between the People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA), armed wing of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), and the National Liberation Army of Angola (ELNA), armed wing of the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA). The engagement was notable for marking the first major deployment of rocket artillery in the Angolan Civil War, as well as the last serious attempt by ELNA forces to seize Luanda, the Angolan capital. It occurred on the last day of Portuguese colonial rule in the country, which formally received independence only hours after the fighting.
Loango-Angola is the name for the possessions of the Dutch West India Company in contemporary Angola and the Republic of the Congo. Notably, the name refers to the colony that was captured from the Portuguese between 1641 and 1648. Due to the distance between Luanda and Elmina, the capital of the Dutch Gold Coast, a separate administration for "Africa South" was established at Luanda during the period of the Dutch occupation.
Portuguese Angola refers to Angola during the historic period when it was a territory under Portuguese rule in southwestern Africa. In the same context, it was known until 1951 as Portuguese West Africa.
The recapture of Salvador was a Spanish–Portuguese military expedition in 1625 to retake the city of Salvador in Brazil from the forces of the Dutch West India Company (WIC).
The Brazilian War of Independence, was waged between the newly independent Brazilian Empire and the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, which had just undergone the Liberal Revolution of 1820. It lasted from February 1822, when the first skirmishes took place, to March 1824, with the surrender of the Portuguese garrison in Montevideo. The war was fought on land and sea and involved both regular forces and civilian militia. Land and naval battles took place in the territories of Bahia, Cisplatina and Rio de Janeiro provinces, the vice-kingdom of Grão-Pará, and in Maranhão and Pernambuco, which today are part of Ceará, Piauí and Rio Grande do Norte states.
The Groot Desseyn was a plan devised in 1623 by the Dutch West India Company to seize the Portuguese/Spanish possessions of the Iberian Union in Africa and the Americas, in order that the Spanish would not collect enough money for their war against The Netherlands.
The Recapture of Recife was a military engagement between the Portuguese forces under Francisco Barreto de Meneses and the Dutch forces of Captain Walter Van Loo. After the Dutch defeats at Guararapes, their surviving men, as well as other garrisons of New Holland, joined in the area of Recife (Mauritsstad) in order to make a last stand. However, after fierce fighting, the Portuguese victoriously entered the city and the remaining Dutch were ousted from Brazil.
The Battle of Pungo Andongo, also known as the siege of Pungo Andongo was a military engagement in what is today Angola between Portugal and the Kingdom of Ndongo whose capital, Pungo Andongo, also known as Pedras Negras, was besieged. After a nine-month encirclement, the capital was taken by storm, plundered and occupied by the Portuguese.
Portuguese Empire 
Dutch West India Company 