History History

The men settled in the region of Lagoa Santa, 50 kilometers north of the city of Belo Horizonte. They lived in caves and probably coexisted with the megafauna for two millennia

The men of the Sambaquis culture settled in the coastal areas of the Rio de Janeiro region. We find the presence until Bahia in the North and the Rio Grande do Sul. They will create tumuli based on shells of 20 to 30 meters high that they used as burials

Constantinople was taken by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, who imposed heavy customs duties on European traders. The Spanish and Portuguese maritime and trading powers then sought a new route to the Indies. In 1492, Christopher Columbus, in the name of the Spanish crown, landed in the Caribbean islands, believing he had reached India. Portugal was to embark on this race towards the West.

Born in Belmonte, Portugal in 1467, the Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral was a fidalgo, from a good Portuguese family. He first sailed in the Gulf of Guinea where he carried out commercial and diplomatic missions. Unlike the Portuguese navigators who sailed along the African coast for the "volta", Cabral was to move further west on his way to Calicut in India to "catch" the trade winds, as he left in March and not in July. A stronger wind than expected will push him towards new lands.

In 1494, the Pope was called upon to arbitrate the disputes between the Iberian kingdoms of Portugal and Spain. It was the Treaty of Tordesillas that delimited the respective possessions of the two countries.

Pedro Álvares Cabral disembarked on an unknown land on April 22, a land he named "Land of the True Cross", on the site of present-day Porto Seguro in the southern state of Bahia.

On January 1, 1502, the Rio de Janeiro region was discovered by the first Portuguese coastal expedition led by Gaspar de Lemos. The Portuguese commander thought he had arrived at the mouth of a river and gave it the name of "January River". The Portuguese did not establish a military base there at first.

King Manuel of Portugal, in accordance with the Treaty of Tordesillas, claims the Land of the True Cross

The king of Portugal authorizes a group of Lusitanian merchants to exploit the pau brasil, the dye tree that will give its name to Brazil. An expedition commanded by Gonçalo Coelho is sent to the Land of the True Cross

The Aragonese Cristóvão Jacques is the commander of the operation "coast guard" whose mission is to remove the French corsairs from the region.

From the 1530s onwards, the Portuguese government decided to actively regain control of Brazil to eliminate the smuggling of firewood and the risk posed by the French and Dutch. With the decline of the Oriental trade, the Portuguese saw the potential Brazilian market as an opportunity for significant economic benefits. Five ships, each carrying 400 people, dropped anchor on the Brazilian coast. The cultivation of sugar cane quickly made its mark on the Brazilian land.

Between 1531 and 1855, more than 4 million Africans were uprooted from their African homeland and sent as slaves to Brazil. The city of Rio alone accounted for nearly half of this slave labor

In 1534, King Manuel of Portugal divided Brazil into 15 hereditary captaincies and thus entrusted individuals with the colonization and exploitation of the lands they were given

France never recognized the Treaty of Tordesillas and settled in the Bay of Rio with the aim of founding the colony of France Antarctica. Few in number, plagued by internal dissensions between Catholics and Protestants among others, the French did not manage to make this territory fruitful. The Portuguese drove them out definitively 10 years later.

On March 1, 1565, Estacio de Sà founded the city of San Sebastián de Rio de Janeiro

Discovery of gold in the valleys of Rio Mortes and Rio Doce in what will become Minas Gerais.

Creation of the Intendance des Mines, which will be in charge of tax collection, justice and territorial administration

The war of the Emboabas will oppose the Bandeirantes paulistes to the gold and diamond seekers. The captaincy of Minas was then separated from that of Rio de Janeiro and became a territory in its own right

The Portuguese founded the city of Vila Rica de Ouro Preto, today Ouro Preto, which became the capital of this new gold mining region: Minas Gerais. The capital of Minas Gerais was covered with opulent civil and religious buildings, including the magnificent Nossa Senhora do Pilar and Sao Francisco de Assis

Vila Rica, now Ouro Preto, rose up against the Portuguese crown and the heavy taxes imposed by the administration of the colonial metropolis on gold and imported products, especially since the creation of the casas de fundiçao e da moeda (gold and coinage)

The gold route, or Estrada Real, is going to be extended to the north of Minas. Diamond veins were discovered in Arraial do Tijuco, now Diamantina, giving a new dynamic to the region. Many prospectors made their fortune there. It was here that the legendary Chica da Silva, a freed slave, became a legendary character immortalized in the eponymous film by Carlos Diegues

The Aleijadinho, the little cripple, whose real name is Antonio Francisco Lisboa, is certainly the most famous sculptor and stonemason of colonial Brazil and of the baroque mineiro. Although his biography is imprecise, we know that his work and influence were immense. It was in the churches of Ouro Preto, Congonhas (where he made a remarkable Way of the Cross), and Sao Joao Del Rei, that the sculptor produced his prolific work. Stricken with leprosy, he continued to honor his orders, his carving tools attached to his stumps

The Portuguese crown established increasingly heavy taxes on gold mining as the veins began to run out. From 1750 onwards, it required all miners to pay 100 arrobas of gold.

The city of Rio de Janeiro became the new capital of the Portuguese colony in place of Salvador de Bahia, materializing the shift of Brazil's center of gravity from the sugar-producing Northeast to the country's Southeast

The Portuguese crown, no doubt seeing in the lowering of taxes paid by the miners a lack of good will, established a "derrama", that is, the obligation to pay all overdue taxes. From then on, massive movements of opposition to the Portuguese crown will start to be structured in the city of Vila Rica

In 1789, the influence of the Enlightenment and the North American revolution reached Brazil thanks to some Brazilian students from the University of Montpellier or Coimbra and the "inconfidencia", a revolt in Minas Gerais, agitated the country. These enlightened nobles demanded the end of Portuguese hegemony over the Brazilian territory and the advent of a republic. The leader of the rebels, Tiradentes, was arrested and executed. His head was exposed to the public.

The lieutenant "Tiradentes" (nickname of his activity as a dentist or "tooth puller"), whose real name was Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, is undoubtedly the hero of theinconfidencia mineira . Paradoxically, he was probably one of the poorest and least literate men in this conspiracy, which was a revolt of the colonial elite, unlike the "Bahian conspiracy", the result of a popular revolt. Son of a landowner, he was orphaned at the age of eleven and could not study. His military activity of protection of the gold convoys of Minas for the Portuguese crown made him rub shoulders with the wealth of the elites and the great misery of the people. After a stay in Rio in 1787, he returned to Vila Rica, the present Ouro Preto, where he began to "preach" for independence and succeeded in convincing some members of the clergy and the Minas nobility, such as Claudio Manuel da Costa and Tomas Gonzaga, both educated in Coimbra, to refuse the heavy taxes and increasingly harsh constraints of the Portuguese metropolis. The movement received the approval of the Mineiro people and in 1789 an insurrection was organized to proclaim a republic. Unfortunately, the conspirators were denounced by one of their own, Colonel Silvério Dos Reis, and were arrested by the Portuguese. Tiradentes exonerated his comrades and was the only one to be punished by death in Rio de Janeiro on April 21, 1792 and his head was exposed in Vila Rica, the heart of the conspiracy. The Positivist Republic will make Tiradentes a Brazilian hero.

Born in Lisbon on May 13, 1767 and died in the same city on March 10, 1826, João VI was King of Portugal and first titular emperor of Brazil. He took refuge with his court in Rio de Janeiro to escape the Napoleonic advance. He promoted the development of Brazil by opening its ports to England and encouraging the establishment of factories. Administrative, artistic and scientific institutions were created in Rio, making it a true capital.

João VI had to leave, however, in 1820, because another revolution occurred in Lisbon. He left his son, the prince regent Dom Pedro I, in Rio. On 7 September 1822, the latter betrayed the Lusitanian royalty with cries of " Fico " (I am staying) and "independence or death! Dom Pedro, son of King João VI, refused to follow his father to Portugal and declared himself emperor of an independent Brazil. The young Dom Pedro will prefer this land where he grew up to that of his ancestors. He abdicated himself in favour of his son Dom Pedro II, "Brazilian at heart" and enlightened despot, from 1831 to 1880

In 1870, the positivist influence within the army and the strong anti-imperial sentiment of the Brazilian nobility, which did not like the liberal policies of Dom Pedro II, favored the emergence of republican ideas. The republican manifesto was proclaimed in Rio

On November 15, 1889, Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca led the revolting troops and deposed the royal cabinet. He became president of the newly formed Brazilian republic, defeating Prudente de Morais by only 32 votes

November 3, 1891. The army revolted in Rio against the authoritarian excesses of Deodoro da Fonseca. On November 23, Floriano Peixoto, until then vice-president, became president of the Republic

In 1897, the new capital of the state of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, was created ex nihilo . This new city was designed and planned to assume its functions of capital in place of the old Vila Rica, too enclosed. Its name "Bel Horizon" describes the exceptional site chosen by politicians and urban planners to house what was to become one of the country's most modern and dynamic metropolises.

The mayor of Rio, Francisco Pereira, had avenues built and parks created. The port was modernized. Hygienic policies led to the razing of working-class neighborhoods. The poorest people were driven to the outskirts of the city.

Hygienic theories prompted Rio' s city councillors to make certain vaccines compulsory. A "vaccine revolt" transformed the city of Rio into an impressive battlefield between the population and the forces of law and order.

Juscelino Kubitschek, JK (or jota k) to Brazilians, is one of Brazil's best-known politicians, both at home and abroad. Born into a poor family in the small Mineira town of Diamantina, Juscelino went on to do brilliant medical studies and became a surgeon. At the age of 32, he became a member of parliament for Minas Gerais and, in 1940, mayor of Belo Horizonte, a planned city built in 1898. He was elected governor of Minas Gerais in 1950, and set about successfully transforming a rural state into one of the country's industrial heartlands. In the 1956 elections, two years after the death of Getulio Vargas, his conciliatory approach won over many Brazilians, and even the military did not oppose this candidate, whom many considered a former close associate of Vargas. JK then set about industrializing the country with the help of foreign capital. A vast road network was built. The steel and automobile industries enjoyed their golden age. But what history remembers about this president with the look of a Hollywood star is the construction ex nihilo of a new capital, Brasilia, materializing an old Brazilian dream. The social question was certainly little or poorly taken into account, but history, sometimes magnanimous, will turn into hagiography for JK.

During the first part of the ^20th century, Rio, which was both the capital of the country and of the state of Rio, underwent intense urban, economic and social transformations. During the era of President Getulio Vargas in particular, historians speak of urban transformation and modernization. The city gradually took on the trappings of modernity. Its most emblematic monument, the Christ the Redeemer, created by the skilful hands of French sculptor Paul Landowski, was installed on one of the city's mornes. The city attracted many immigrants, first foreign, then domestic. The latter settled en masse in makeshift dwellings clinging to the hillsides.

Unfortunately, in 1960, the city lost its status as capital to Brasilia. Civil servants and diplomats were reluctant to move to the capital, which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere on the central plateau. A certain lethargy hit the city, which would regain its economic and cultural dynamism in the 1980s.

Twice, in 1992 and 2012, the marvellous city will host the Earth Summits, which seek to alert civil society and politicians to the risks threatening the blue planet if mankind does not change its ways. Brazil is a country particularly hard hit by global warming. Recurrent flooding in Petropolis (2022 and 2024), catastrophic flooding in Rio Grande do Sul in 2024, and temperatures of over 50°C on Rio's beaches in 2024 are just a few examples of the growing number of climatic phenomena.

Although the years of Lula's government do not specifically concern the city of Rio, the positive impact on the wonderful city and its thousands of favelas was notorious. One of the most notable achievements was undoubtedly the creation of the bolsa familia, or family grant, which lifted a large number of families out of extreme poverty. By making the grant conditional on children attending school, this measure helped to get children into school, thus breaking the vicious circle of begging. Another condition was the compulsory vaccination of children. Certain segments of the Carioca population, on limited incomes, finally had the right to a decent roof over their heads, thanks to the "Minha casa, minha vida" (my house, my life) home-ownership assistance program. Overall, the Lula years saw the emergence of Brazil, with an overall improvement in living conditions and the creation of a large number of jobs in Rio and throughout Brazil. The policy of positive discrimination also enabled many young Brazilians to gain access to Brazil's selective public universities. Unfortunately, the economic crisis of 2015, the failure to combat violence and scandals linked to the financing of political parties and involving the PT were to tarnish the end of the Lula years and those of his successor, the deposed president Dilma Rousseff.

The wonderful city will become an Olympic city in 2016. It is one of the few metropolises in the South to have had this privilege. In spite of numerous delays in the realization of projects and infrastructures, Rio will honor its mission and rehabilitate many neighborhoods, sometimes driving out the inhabitants.

The deterioration of living conditions will generate the ire of students and the most fragile classes who denounce the lavish spending of Brazil for major events such as the 2014 soccer World Cup or the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Many protesters were arrested. At the same time, large-scale corruption cases were brought to light as part of the "lava jato" operation. Failed by her political allies, Dilma Roussef was impeached in 2016 after animpeachment procedure. Former president Lula, after a pseudo-trial, will be sentenced to prison for having received bribes from the oil company Petrobras.

On September 2, 2018, a violent fire destroyed one of the jewels of Carioca and Brazilian culture in the space of a few hours. The National Museum, located in the Saint-Christophe Palace, went up in smoke, losing forever part of its gigantic collection of over 72,000 pieces. The collections in the "ethnology and anthropology" sector, the most fragile, were the most severely damaged. Other collections, featuring more resistant materials, were less affected. Perhaps symbolic of President Bolsonaro's manifest lack of interest in culture, the lack of maintenance, linked to drastic budget restrictions, was quickly pointed out by the Carioca people, who are attached to this major monument of their history. A vast solidarity movement gradually enabled the building to be rebuilt and the historical collection to be reconstituted.

Jair Bolsonaro, a former captain in the Brazilian army and openly nostalgic for the military regime, was elected president. The exasperation of a large proportion of Brazilians in the face of a never-ending crisis, endemic violence and widespread corruption prompted a vote motivated by "disengagement". The self-proclaimed "Trump of the tropics" implemented a liberal domestic policy aimed, among other things, at limiting state spending. Close to the 3 b lobbies (the bullets, the Bible, the oxen), he let the Amazon go up in smoke and did very little to oppose the violence committed against the indigenous people and the inhabitants of the favelas.

The extreme fragility of the Brazilian society, the cutting of public services will overexpose the country to the pandemic which will take in Brazil an extreme dimension. More than 500,000 Brazilians will lose their lives. The carelessness of Bolsonaro's government has delayed the vaccination against Covid-19 and the social distancing measures have long been presented as useless, ineffective and economically costly

Lula won the presidential elections, but his narrow victory left him at the head of a deeply fractured country. Brazil regained its place in the concert of nations and asserted itself as a leader of the global South.

In 2024, the pockets of misery that had grown considerably stronger in Rio under Bolsonaro's mandate are still struggling to be reabsorbed, showing the depth of the roots of social inequality in Brazil and in emerging countries in general. What's more, many Bolsonarist elected representatives are still in key positions (governors, senators or deputies), slowing down the implementation of measures with a social impact. The financial markets did not approve of Lula's social policy, and the Real plummeted in the space of a few weeks. By July 2024, there were almost 6 reais to the euro.