The Revista Militar, or Military Review, was founded on 1 December 1848 by a group of 26 officers of the Army and the Navy, led by Lieutenant Fontes Pereira de Mello, of the Royal Corps of Engineers.

Its first issue was published in January 1849 - one of the first magazines of the Portuguese military press. Currently, the Military Review is the oldest continuing military magazine in the World, having had no interruptions since 1848.

Scholars can certify the influence exerted by its founders and by most of the magazine's contributors in promoting the Armed Forces, and the country itself, since 1 December 1848, when the “Contract of the Military Review Company” was signed.

"The century in which we live tends, undoubtedly,
to reveal the great humanitarian thinking
which is based on the predominance of intelligence
over force"

(Lieutenant Fontes Pereira de Melo, Introduction, First Number, January 1849)