[3] There, he didn't attend primary school, given the teacher's violence, and would start studying in his home with his father, who was a lawyer and writer, and since 1918 held the position of municipal administrator.

"Cunhal was baptized on 5 May 1919 in Seia's mother church; his godfather was his brother António José, then 10, and the godmother was the Immaculate Conception.

[7] His father's republicanism cemented in Cunhal's personality a feeling of "social solidarity" and "political insubmission".

[16] What he earned from track and field would become useful when he entered clandestinity, as he had to travel thousand of kilometers on a bicycle to talk with members of the Party.

While in prison, Cunhal submitted his final thesis on the topic of abortion and obtained his law degree (the jury included future Prime Minister Marcello Caetano, who would later replace Salazar).

The government of António Salazar claimed that a Soviet submarine was near the Peniche coast waiting for Cunhal.

In 1961, Cunhal was elected as the party's secretary-general, following the death of Bento Gonçalves in the political prisoners colony of Tarrafal in Cape Verde.

A faction of army officers seen as aligned with the party dominated the post-revolutionary provisional governments, with the pro-communist prime minister Vasco Gonçalves leading four provisional governments, which brought accusations that the party was attempting to take power via the military.

He was succeeded by Carlos Carvalhas, but his voice remained important in the following years, and he consistently sided with the party's most orthodox wing.

His drawings, made while in prison, were published, revealing his sensibility for the arts, as was also shown by his translation of King Lear by Shakespeare (edited in his last years, and originally written under the female pseudonym Maria Manuela Serpa).

[20][21] His only remaining sister Maria Eugénia Cunhal (Lisbon, 17 January 1927 – 10 December 2015) had also been a lifelong party militant.