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| 1765 |
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| The government ordered vineyards in areas suitable for grain production uprooted and replaced with wheat and other crops. The move was an attempt to decrease Portuguese need to import grain, but it was unsuccessful. | 1 |
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| 1768 |
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| The distinction made by the Inquisition between old and new Christians abolished. | 2 |
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| 1768 |
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| Censorship transferred from the Church to the state. A royal printing press established. Such reforms were paid for through a tax on wine, brandy, and vinegar. | 3 |
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| 1769 |
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| The Law of the Good Reason limited valid laws to only those which rested on “good reason.” This was a triumph for Enlightenment thinking. | 4 |
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| 1769 |
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| Pombal turned the Inquisition into a royal court rather than an independent institution. | 5 |
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| 1770 |
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| Trade declared a noble and necessary profession and traders given the right to establish entailed estates. | 6 |
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| 1774 |
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| Insanity of Joseph I and regency of his wife, Maria Anna. She began gradually to reduce the power of Pombal. | 7 |
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| 1774 |
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| Pombal decreed the free circulation of goods throughout Portugal. | 8 |
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| 1774 |
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| New regulation eliminated the inquisitors' use of the death penalty and public autos-da-fé. | 9 |
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| 1777–1816 |
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| MARIA I, the daughter of Joseph I, queen. She married her uncle Peter, who assumed the title of king as Peter III but who died in 1786. Under Maria, the nobility began to recover its position. Pombal was exiled (d. 1782) but his reform policies continued. | 10 |
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| 1779 |
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| Establishment of the Royal Academy of Science. | 11 |
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| 1780 |
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| Police prerogatives enlarged. | 12 |
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