O BRASIL / EL BRASIL / BRAZIL

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NAME:                       República Federativa do Brasil

                                    The generally accepted etymology of the name is the "brazilwood" tree because of the reddish color of its wood, which color reminded the first Portuguese explorers of reddish embers (> Port.  brasil ). The Tupi people of the pre-Columbian region of Brazil called their land ibirapitanga ('red wood').

POPULATION:         193,000,000 (2011)

ETHNIC GROUPS:   Mulatto (38%); African (6%); European origin (55%); Amerindian (0.5%)

CAPITAL:                  Brasilia (1,500,000)

                                    Other major cities: Rio de Janeiro (6,100,000); São Paulo (23,000,000); Salvador da Bahia (2,700,000); Belo Horizonte (2,400,000)

LANGUAGES:          Portuguese (official)

RELIGION:               Roman Catholic (73%); Protestant (15%); other (12%)

LIFE EXPECTANCY:    1997: men, 57; women, 67; 2007: men, 68; women 76

LITERACY:               1997, 83%; 2007, 88%

GOVERNMENT:       democratic federal republic; representative democracy; 26 states; 1 federal district (Brasília)

                                    President: Dilma Rousseff

MILITARY:               295,000 active troops

ECONOMY:              steel, autos, textiles, shoes, chemicals, gems, computers, coffee, beef, minerals, petroleum

MONEY:                    real (BRL). 1997: 1.1 BRL = $1.00US; 2007: $1.00 US = 2.2 BRL

GEOGRAPHY:          largest country in all Western Hemisphere; Atlantic coast; Amazon region known as the Earth's lungs

 

HISTORY:

31,000-10,000 B.C.    NE Brazil: cave paintings, fireplaces, tools (perhaps as early as 43,000 B.C.)

                                    Thinly settled with hunter-gathering peoples

            1492                Vicente Yáñez Pinzón (with Colón in 1492) discovered Río Marañón, later called the Río Amazonas

            1500                Discovered by  Pedro Alvares Cabral and claimed by Portugal

            1501                Amerigo Vespucci visited Brazil

            1502                Jan. 1: Vespucci found Rio de Janeiro

            1532                First permanent Portuguese settlements

            1549-1763       Bahia made first colonial capital (Tomé de Souza)

            1554                São Paulo founded

            1567                Rio de Janeiro founded

            1693                Gold found in Ouro Preto in the province of Minas Gerais: beginning of bandeirantes  (adventurers, gold seekers).

            1730-1814       (alternate birth, 1738) Aleijadinho (Antônio Francisco Lisboa), genius baroque sculptor and architect, especially in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais.

            1758                Jesuits expelled from Brazil

            1763                Capital moved from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro

            1807                João VI moves Portuguese monarchy from Portugal to Brazil making Brazil a kingdom

            1821                João VI returns to Portugal and leaves Brazilian government to son Pedro I

            1822                Sept. 7: Pedro I declares Brazilian independence and turns Brazil into an empire

            1822-1831       Emperor Pedro I ruler

            1824                New Constitution

            1831-1840       Regency for Pedro II

            1840-1889       Pedro II king of Brazil

            1852                Pedro II helped overthrow dictator Rosas of Argentina

            1864-1870       Pedro II waged successful war against dictator Solano López of Paraguay

            1870-1888       Slaves emancipated

            1889                Brazil becomes republic

                                    Brazil renamed: United States of Brazil

            1889-1890       Military Dictatorship

            1891                New Constitution

            1891-1893       Chaotic governments: Marshals Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca, Floriano Peixoto

            1894-1898       President Prudente Morais Barros (republican)

            1897                Civil War in Northeast lead by Antônio Conselheiro

            1902-1906       Pres. Paulo Rodrigues Alves transformed Rio de Janeiro into major city

            1930-1945       Getulio Vargas, autocratic president: dictatorial powers by new constitution

            1940                Pelé (Edison Arantes do Nascimento) was born: he has been rated as the greatest footballer (soccer player) of all time, and he was named Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee.

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            1942-1945       Brazil fought in World War II: battle of Monte Cassino

            1950-1954       Vargas elected president again (suicide 1954)

            1955-1961       Juscelino Kubitschek, president

            1960                Capital moved from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília

            1960-1961       President Janio Quadros resigns (mayor of São Paulo 1985-)

            1961-1964       President João Belchoir Marques Goulart (Goulart) overthrown by military coup

            1964-1985       Military dictatorship (Gen. João Baptista Figueiredo until 1985)

                                    Dictatorships carried out torture and assassinations against what it saw as leftist subversives

            1967                Brazil renamed República Federativa do Brasil

            1970                Brazil had become largest economic power in Latin America

            1985                Return to democracy with interim presidency of José Sarney and bicameral congress

                                    After Tancredo Neves died shortly after being elected by Electoral College

            1988                Interim presidency of Sarney extended until 1990

            1989                Fernando Collor de Mello elected president

            1992                Brazil restructured its massive foreign debt

                                    Collor de Mello indicted for corruption

                                    Itamar Franco (former VP) new president

                                    Brazil hosted Earth Summit on international environmental concerns

            1994                Fernando Henrique Cardoso elected president (sociology professor; neoliberal)

            1998-2003       Cardoso re-elected as president.

            2003-2011       Jan. 1; Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva elected president: campaign for social and economic changes.

            2007-2011       Petrobras discovered the Tupi oil field, one of the largest oil and natural gas field in the world (in the Atlantic near Rio de Janeiro), raising Brazil's petroleum reserves by 62%.

            2008                Petrobras announced the discovery of another huge oil field, Jupiter. The Jupiter field is located nearly 17,0000 ft below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, again, near Rio de Janeiro.

2011–2015      Dilma Vana Rousseff (b. 1947-present; daughter of Bulgarian entrepreneur and Brazilian school teacher mother) succeeds Lula da Silva as 36th president of Brazil and first woman president; 1964-1970 she was active in urban resistance groups fighting against the military dictatorship (see 1964-1985 above); from 1970 to 1972 she was jailed and tortured by various members of the military; by profession she is an economist; she graduated from Rio Grande do Sul University in 1977; later she took doctoral level courses in economics; from 1979 to the present she has been active in progressive politics; her party is the Workers Party; she has one child with her partner Carlos Araújo.

 

 

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2014                Dilma Rousseff re-elected president for new four-year term.

2016                (May) President Rousseff suspended from presidency for six months while Senate debates impeachment proceedings against her due to criminal charges of corruption. Vice President Michel Temer becomes Acting President of Brazil.

                        (August 5 to August 21) Brazil hosted the “Games of the XXXI Olympiad” (popularly known as “Rio 2016”).

                        (August 31): The Brazilian Senate removed Dilma Roussef from office (61-20) after finding her guilty of breaking Brazilian budgetary laws (i.e., “fiscal peddling” involving illegal funds of Petrobras, the Brazilian state oil company).

                        Simultaneously, Michel Temer (b. 1940), a center-right politician (with his own cloud of suspected illegalities to face), assumed the office of president.


 

                       

 

MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES and POWER BLOCKS:

            Workers Party

Social Democratic Party

            Partido do Movimento Democrâtico Brasileiro

            Democratic Labor Party

            Brazilian Labor Party

            Brazilian Communist Party

            Military

 

PRINCIPAL MEMBERS OF THE INTELLIGENTSIA:

            Euclides da Cunha, Os Sertões  (1905)

            Jorge Amado (1916-present), novelist from Bahia: Tocaia Grande ;  Gabriela, Cravo e Canela  (1958)

            Leonardo Boff, theologian of liberation theology: Vida para além da morte  (1973)

            Clarice Lispector (1921-77), The Hour of the Star

            Nélida Piñon, A República sos Sonhos  (1984)

            Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1838-1908), novelist

            Mário de Andrade (1893-1945), Macunaima  (1938)