🇧🇷 Brazil

The 1494 treaty allocated the eastern portion of South America to Portugal. It provided the legal basis on which the Portuguese Crown later claimed and settled Brazil.

By the mid-sixteenth century sugar was Brazil's leading export and enslaved Africans its largest import, supplying the plantation economy. More than 2.8 million enslaved people were brought from Africa between 1500 and 1800.

A Portuguese fleet under Pedro Álvares Cabral reached the Brazilian coast near present-day Porto Seguro on 22 April 1500 and claimed the territory for Portugal. The landing began European colonisation of a land then inhabited by an estimated 7 million indigenous people speaking mainly Tupi–Guarani languages, and opened more than three centuries of colonial rule based on sugar plantations and, later, gold mining.

São Vicente was established as the first Portuguese town in the territory. It marked the shift from coastal trading in brazilwood to permanent settlement.

The king parcelled Brazil into fifteen private and autonomous captaincies to encourage settlement at little cost to the Crown. The decentralised system proved largely unsuccessful and was superseded within fifteen years.

The failing captaincies were restructured into a single centralised colony governed from Salvador, which became the capital. This established unified Portuguese administration over its South American possessions.

The French attempted settlement at Rio in the 1560s and in Maranhão in the 1610s, while the Dutch seized parts of Bahia and Pernambuco during the Dutch–Portuguese War after the end of the Iberian Union. Portuguese victories secured a continuous Atlantic seaboard under one European power.

With sugar exports declining at the end of the seventeenth century, gold became the backbone of the colonial economy. The rush drew thousands of settlers from Portugal and its other colonies, reshaping Brazil's demography and provoking conflict between newcomers and established settlers.

The Inconfidência Mineira was among the autonomy movements the Portuguese administration repressed to protect its wealthiest colony. Alongside the crushing of slave resistance such as the Quilombo of Palmares, it illustrated the two pillars of colonial control.

Facing Spanish and Napoleonic threats to continental Portugal, the court moved from Lisbon to Rio in the name of Queen Maria I. The move brought Brazil its first stock exchanges and national bank, and ended the Portuguese monopoly by opening Brazilian ports to other nations.

The Brazilian press was officially born on 13 May 1808 with the establishment of the Royal Printing National Press. The Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, the country's first newspaper, began circulating on 10 September of the same year.

In retaliation for the Napoleonic invasion that forced him into exile, the Prince Regent directed a campaign against neighbouring French Guiana. It was Brazil's first offensive military projection beyond its colonial borders.

To justify the court's continued residence in Rio after the Peninsular War, Brazil was raised from colony to co-equal kingdom. This created a pluricontinental transatlantic monarchy and transformed Brazil's constitutional standing.

The mission brought artists such as Jean-Baptiste Debret and proposed graduation courses for artists and craftsmen. It led to the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts and shaped Brazilian academic art through the nineteenth century.

Acceding to the demands of the Porto revolutionaries of the Liberal Revolution of 1820, John VI sailed for Portugal and swore an oath to the new constitution. His son Pedro de Alcântara remained in Rio as Regent, setting the stage for separation.

Fighting spread through the northern and northeastern regions and the Cisplatina province, with the last Portuguese soldiers surrendering on 8 March 1824. Military victory consolidated the new empire's control over its claimed territory.

Prince Regent Dom Pedro proclaimed Brazil's independence on 7 September 1822 near São Paulo and was crowned its first emperor weeks later, ending three centuries of Portuguese colonial rule without the prolonged wars fought elsewhere in the region.

The 1824 charter established a bicameral legislature and enshrined freedom of religion and of the press. It provided the constitutional framework for the monarchy until 1889.

On 29 August 1825 Portugal officially acknowledged the sovereignty of the Empire of Brazil. Recognition opened the way to normal diplomatic relations with European powers.

The Cabanagem, Malê Revolt, Balaiada, Sabinada, Ragamuffin War and Praieira revolt expressed provincial dissatisfaction with central power and latent social tensions in a slaveholding new state. The upheaval was overcome only at the end of the 1840s.

Worn down by administrative turmoil and dissent from both liberals and conservatives, Pedro I departed for Portugal on 7 April 1831. A regency was set up by the General Assembly since Pedro II could not exercise constitutional powers until of age.

The General Assembly declared Pedro II of age early to restore a charismatic centre of authority. His coronation stabilised the empire and began a 58-year reign.

During Pedro II's reign Brazil prevailed in the Platine War, the Uruguayan War and the devastating Paraguayan War, the largest war effort in Brazilian history. These conflicts followed the earlier Cisplatine War that produced Uruguayan independence and established Brazil as the dominant regional power.

The Eusébio de Queirós Law, passed under pressure from the British Aberdeen Act, banned the transatlantic traffic in enslaved people. It began the long internal process that led to full abolition.

The 1872 census was the first systematic enumeration of the Brazilian population. It provided the state with its first reliable demographic baseline.

The Great Drought struck the semiarid interior and caused approximately half a million deaths. A similarly devastating drought recurred in 1915.

Four million Europeans arrived between 1880 and 1930, part of some five million migrants from over 60 countries between 1808 and 1972. Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese, Arab and other communities reshaped the population of the South and Southeast.

The Lei Áurea, signed on 13 May 1888, made Brazil the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, after more than three centuries in which enslaved Africans had been forced to work on plantations and in mines.

On 15 November 1889 a bloodless coup by Imperial Army officers led by Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca, backed by rural and financial elites, deposed Emperor Pedro II and established the Republic of the United States of Brazil, replacing nearly seven decades of constitutional monarchy. A new national flag bearing the positivist motto 'Ordem e Progresso' followed days later, and 15 November remains Republic Day.

Following an economic crisis and a military one, civilian politicians assumed the presidency in 1894 after five years of army dominance, press censorship and controlled elections. Civilians held power until October 1930.

The Acre War briefly broke the First Republic's record of settling border disputes peacefully with neighbouring states. Its resolution helped fix Brazil's modern territorial extent.

Brazil's involvement in the war was followed by a failed attempt to secure a prominent position in the League of Nations. The episode marked an early bid for international standing that fell short.

The 1922 event overturned the academic conventions inherited from the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. It launched a nationalist avant-garde trend in Brazilian art and literature.

Broadcasting started on 7 September 1922 with a speech by President Epitácio Pessoa. It was formalised on 20 April 1923 with the creation of the Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro.

Getúlio Vargas, the defeated opposition candidate in the 1930 election, backed by most of the military and galvanised by the murder of his running mate, led an armed uprising that overthrew the First Republic and its coffee-planter oligarchy. Installed as head of government, he closed Congress, extinguished the constitution, ruled by emergency powers and replaced state governors with loyalists, beginning a 15-year rule that combined populist labour reforms with periods of authoritarian control.

The first of three failed attempts in the 1930s to remove Vargas from power. Its defeat consolidated the new regime's hold over the states.

The communist revolt was suppressed but created a security crisis. Congress responded by transferring further powers to the executive branch, easing Vargas's path to dictatorship.

The 1937 coup cancelled the 1938 election and formalised Vargas as dictator. Government brutality and press censorship increased sharply during the Estado Novo era.

Integralist sympathisers mounted the third and last of the decade's failed attempts to unseat Vargas. Its failure entrenched the Estado Novo.

Population grew rapidly as the mortality rate declined, with annual growth reaching 3.0% in the 1950s and life expectancy rising from 44 to 54 years. Growth has fallen steadily since the 1960s and is projected to turn negative by 2050.

Brazil abandoned neutrality after Nazi German and Fascist Italian attacks in a strategic dispute over the South Atlantic. It fought in the Battle of the Atlantic and sent an expeditionary force to the Italian campaign.

With the Allied victory and the fall of Europe's fascist regimes, Vargas's position became untenable and the army that had installed him fifteen years earlier removed him. Democratic government was reinstated.

Television began officially on 18 September 1950 with the founding of TV Tupi. It established the mass broadcast media that would dominate Brazilian culture and politics.

Vargas had returned to power by election in 1950 but killed himself in August 1954 during a political crisis. Several brief interim governments followed.

Kubitschek became president in 1956 and governed conciliatorily, with the economy and industrial sector growing remarkably. His greatest achievement, the purpose-built capital Brasília, was inaugurated in 1960 to help develop the interior.

Meeting in national convention, the party confirmed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as its candidate for the October 2026 election with Vice President Geraldo Alckmin again as his running mate, reversing his earlier statements that he would not seek re-election.

The tariff took effect on 22 July 2026 after a Section 301 investigation into Brazil's trade and legal practices, covering most of the roughly 40 billion dollars in annual exports to the United States while exempting coffee, beef and some aerospace parts.

The monetary policy committee's unanimous decision on 17 June 2026 marked a third consecutive quarter-point reduction, even as it flagged a worsening inflation outlook running above the three per cent target.

Deputies approved a constitutional amendment 461 to 19 in a second-round vote on 27 May 2026, replacing the six-day work pattern with a 40-hour week spread over five days without a cut in pay, and sent the measure to the Senate.

Rainfall four times the monthly average struck the Zona da Mata region around Juiz de Fora and Ubá between 24 and 28 February 2026, killing more than 70 people and displacing thousands in the country's deadliest such disaster since 2024.

The telecoms infrastructure firm unveiled the Synapse cable project, designed to carry data at 320 terabits per second between São Paulo and New Jersey, with construction due to begin in the second half of 2026.

Former president Jair Bolsonaro was sent to prison in January 2026 for plotting to overturn his 2022 election defeat, after a Supreme Court panel had rejected his final appeal the previous November.

The plan aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 59–67% by 2035 and make Brazil carbon neutral by 2050. It sets the framework for national decarbonisation policy.

World leaders and negotiators met in Belém from 10 to 21 November 2025, closing the conference with an agreement to triple funding to help developing countries adapt to climate change and support workers in the energy transition.

The licence approved an exploratory well off Amapá state weeks before Brazil hosted the COP30 climate summit, a decision environmental groups criticised while the government said it would not compromise the country's climate commitments.

Around 2,500 officers took part in the raid on the Penha and Alemão favelas on 28 October 2025; the public defender's office recorded 132 deaths, making it the deadliest police operation in the country's history.

Brazil hosted the 2025 conference and used it to launch a Global carbon market coalition. Eleven countries including China, the European Union and the United Kingdom joined immediately.

For the first time drought covered the country from the North to the Southeast, affecting almost 60% of the territory and the strongest since measurement began in the 1950s. Extreme weather events cost around R$13 billion annually, about 0.1% of 2022 GDP.

On 8 January 2023, a week after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's inauguration, crowds contesting Bolsonaro's election defeat ransacked federal buildings in Brasília before being cleared by security forces; hundreds were later arrested and prosecuted.

Lula led the first round with 48.43% and took 50.90% in the run-off. His return followed his May 2021 announcement that he would contest the 2022 general election.

Brazil was among the hardest-hit countries in the pandemic, recording the second-highest number of deaths worldwide after the United States. The crisis strained the public health system and dominated national politics.

In fiercely contested elections Bolsonaro defeated Fernando Haddad of the Workers Party in the second round with 55.13% of valid votes. His victory marked a sharp conservative turn in Brazilian politics.

In 2017 the court requested investigations of 71 lawmakers and nine ministers of Temer's cabinet allegedly linked to the Petrobras scandal. President Temer himself was also accused of corruption.

Dilma Rousseff was removed from office in 2016 for breaching budget laws, amid a wider corruption investigation known as Operation Car Wash that implicated politicians across the political spectrum; Vice President Michel Temer succeeded her.

Brazil staged the 2014 World Cup, having previously hosted the 1950 tournament, and later the 2019 and 2021 Copa América. The events showcased the country's capacity to organise high-profile global gatherings.

After rapid growth in preceding decades the economy contracted from 2014 during political turmoil and nationwide demonstrations. Consistent significant growth only resumed in 2024.

Same-sex couples have held marriage rights across Brazil since May 2013. It extended civil equality in the largest country in Latin America.

The international television station began broadcasting to 49 countries in May 2010. It extended Brazilian soft power and cultural reach abroad.

Rousseff succeeded Lula after winning in 2010 and again narrowly in 2014, but faced mass protests over corruption and public services. Congress impeached her in 2016 and vice-president Michel Temer assumed full presidential powers on 31 August.

On 2 October 2009 Rio was chosen for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It became the first South American city to host the games, following Mexico City in Latin America.

The Senate approved the agreement in October 2009 and the President enacted it in February 2010. It formally recognises the legal statute of the Catholic Church in Brazil.

Most of Brazil's railway system, held by the state-owned RFFSA, passed into private hands in 2007. The network had been declining since 1945 when emphasis shifted to highway construction.

Brazil achieved oil self-sufficiency in 2006–07 and by the end of 2021 was the world's seventh largest producer at nearly three million barrels a day. It has since become a net exporter of crude.

The 2002 law requires government authorities and public agencies to accept and provide information in Brazilian Sign Language. A 2005 presidential edict extended this to require its teaching in education and speech pathology curricula.

Elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006, Lula's accession from opposition leader was seen as proof of long-sought political stability. It marked the consolidation of Brazil's post-dictatorship democracy.

Exploiting vast natural resources and a large labour pool, Brazil became the continent's leading economy and a regional leader, one of the first in the area to begin recovery from the global downturn, while continuing to pursue industrial and agricultural growth and development of its interior. High income inequality, crime and a recent slowdown in growth remain pressing problems.

As finance minister, Fernando Henrique Cardoso launched the Plano Real in 1994, replacing Brazil's old currency and anchoring monetary policy after decades of failed anti-inflation plans, ending hyperinflation that had exceeded 2,000 per cent annually and stabilising prices for the first time in a generation. Its success carried Cardoso to the presidency in the 1994 election and to re-election in 1998.

A 1993 referendum settled the form of government as a democratic federative republic with a presidential system. It closed debate over restoring a monarchy or adopting parliamentarism.

The almost-unknown Collor won the 1989 election after Sarney's failed government but was impeached in 1992. Vice-president Itamar Franco succeeded him.

Promulgated on 5 October 1988 by the Constituent Assembly, the 'Citizen Constitution' defines Brazil as a democratic federative republic and completed the transition from military rule by expanding civil liberties, extending voting rights and establishing direct elections. It created the universal health care system, abolished the last federal territories, and remains in force as Brazil's founding democratic document, amended 124 times as of July 2022.

In 1985 the military regime peacefully ceded power to civilians, ending 21 years of military rule and restoring democracy in the largest and most populous country in South America. José Sarney took office as president but became unpopular through his failure to control the economic crisis and hyperinflation inherited from the regime.

Led from within the regime by Generals Geisel and Golbery do Couto e Silva, the Amnesty Law started a slow return to democracy. The transition was completed during the 1980s.

The first ethanol-engined car was produced in 1978, and the first ethanol-powered aeroplane engine followed in 2005. These underpinned Brazil's distinctive biofuel-heavy energy matrix.

The São Paulo Metro began operating on 14 September 1974. It was the first underground transit system in the country.

The Amazon rainforest has been under direct threat since the 1970s from rapid economic and demographic expansion. Over 600,000 square kilometres have been cleared by logging since 1970.

Foreign imports were curbed to build a local computer industry, and by the 1980s Brazil produced half the computers sold in the country. The policy followed the mid-1960s installation of IBM and Burroughs mainframes in Brazilian universities.

A sustained economic boom lifted the regime to its greatest popularity in the early 1970s. Subsequent inability to handle economic crises eroded that support and made redemocratisation inevitable.

AI-5 closed off the transitional character of the 1964 regime and entrenched hard-line rule. Repression extended beyond armed guerrillas to institutional opponents, artists and journalists, including abroad through Operation Condor.

A coup in April 1964, supported by the United States, deposed President João Goulart and inaugurated 21 years of military rule. The armed forces governed until 1985 in two decades marked by censorship and human rights abuses including torture and forced disappearances, before handing power back to civilians.

Quadros stepped down in 1961, and his vice-president João Goulart assumed office. Goulart aroused strong political opposition that culminated in his overthrow.