History of Rio

The Tamoio people were living along the land surrounding the Baia de Guanabara (it means Guanabara's bay) when Gaspar de Lemos sailed from Portugal for Brazil in May 1951 and entered the huge bay in January 1502. Mistaking the bay for a river, Lemos named it, Rio de Janeiro. The French, however, were the first Europeans to settle along the great bay in 1555. After a brief alliance with the Tamoio who hated the portuguese for they violence and cruelty, the French were expelled in 1567. The victors then drove the Tamoio from the region in another series of bloody battles.

By the 17th century, the Tamoio had been wiped out. Those who weren't taken into slavery died from disease. Other Indians were "pacified" and taken to live in settlements organized by the Jesuits. The Portuguese had set up a fortified town on the Morro do Castelo (it means castel's hill) in 1567 and, by the 17th century, Rio de Janeiro become Brazil's third-most important settlement (after Salvador de Bahia and Recife - Olinda). African slaves streamed in and the sugar plantations thrived. Even more slaves arrived to work in the gold mines of Minas Gerais State during the 18th century.

In 1807, Napoleon's army marched on Lisbon. Two days before the invasion, 40 ships carrying the Portuguese prince regent (later known as Dom Joao VI) and his entire court of 15,000 set sail for Brazil. When the prince regent arrived in Rio de Janeiro, his Brazilian subjects celebrated wildly, dancing in the streets. He immediately took over the rule of Brazil from his viceroy.

Dom Joao fell in love with Brazil. Even after he became king of Portugal, he remained and declared Rio de Janeiro capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarve. This made Brazil the only New World colony to ever have a European monarch ruling on its soil.

At the end of the 19th century the city's population explored because of European immigration and internal migration (mostly of ex-slaves from the declining coffee and sugar regions). By 1890, Rio de Janeiro boasted more than a million inhabitants, a quarter of them foreingn-born, and the city spread rapidly.

The early 1920s to the late 1950s were Rio's golden age. With the inauguration of the Grand Hotels (the Gloria in 1922 and the Copacabana Palace in 1924), Rio de Janeiro become a romantic, exotic destination for Hollywood celebrities and international high society who came to play and gamble at the casinos and dance of perform in the nightclubs.

Rio de Janeiro continued to change. Three large landfill projects were undertaken to ease the strain on a city restricted by its beautifull surroundings. The first was to become Aeroporto Santos Dumont (it means Santos Dumont's airport), near downtown. The second project resulted in Flamengo Park and the third was expanded the strand at Copacabana.

Rio de Janeiro remained the political capital of Brazil until 1960, when the gouvernment moved to Brasilia. During the 60's modern skyscrapers rose in the city, and some of Rio's most beautifull buildings were lost. During the same time, the favelas (ghettos or shantytowns) of Rio de Janeiro grew to critical mass with immigrants from poverty-stricken areas of the North-est (its basicly like the arizona's desert) and the interior, swelling the number of Rio's urban poor. Unfortunately, The marvelous city began to lose it's gloss as crime and violence increased.

The final decade of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 was not kind to Rio. There were numerous protests during (notably in 1968 when some 100.000 marched upon the Palacio Tiradentes (it means Tiradente's Palace). Even Rio's politicians opposed the military regime, which respondend by withholding vital federal funding. The administration was forced to tighten its belt, and infrastructure deteriorated as the city's coffers dried up.

Democracy was re-established in 1988 when the current Federal Constitution was enacted. Fernando Collor de Mello was the first president truly elected by popular vote after the military regime. Collor took office in March 1990. In September 1992, the National Congress voted for Collor's impeachment after a sequence of scandals were uncovered by the media. The vice-president, Itamar Franco, assumed the presidency. Assisted by the Minister of Finance at that time, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Itamar Franco's administration implemented the Plano Real economic package, which included a new currency temporarily pegged to the U.S. dollar, the real. In the elections held on 3 October 1994, Fernando Henrique Cardoso ran for president and won, being reelected in 1998. Brazil's current president is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, elected in 2002 and reelected in 2006.

A turning point for Rio de Janeiro came when it was chosen as host city for Eco 92, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. In buildup to the conference, the federal gouvernment poured in almost US$ 1 Billion to improve Rio's infrastructure. Approximately US$ 18 Million was spent on satellite communications alone, and Rio Centro, a huge convention center, was built.

Today Rio is more full of optimism and hope than it has been in years. The city buzzes with an unstoppable creative energy, and long awaited projects are finally being financed. The biggest is the controversial Favela-Bairro project, which strives to integrate favelas into the rest of the city by providing basic sanitation and by planning leisure areas, health clinics, schools, preschools and community centers ( Rio de Janeiro has pledged a total of US$ 1Billion over the life of this project). At the same time, some of Rio's aging colonial gems are being revitalized, and businesses are springing up all over town. Other projects on the horizon that mayor Cesar Maia has helped bring to Rio de Janeiro include the 2007 Pan American Games and a branch of the Guggenheim Museum, the first ever in South America.