History of Brazil
Fossil records found in Minas Gerais show evidence that the area now called Brazil has been inhabited for at least 8,000 years by indigenous populations. It is generally accepted that Brazil was first discovered by Europeans on April 22, 1500, when Pedro Álvares Cabral reached the territory, claimed it for Portugal, and named it Vera Cruz (True Cross), though this is contested by some.
Colony
Until 1530, Portugal had little interest in Brazil, mainly due to the high profits gained through commerce with Indochina. This lack of interest led to several "invasions" by different countries, such as France in Rio de Janeiro, and the Netherlands in Recife, so the Portuguese Crown devised a system to effectively occupy Brazil, without paying the costs. Through the Hereditary Captaincies system, Brazil was divided into strips of land that were donated to Portuguese noblemen, who were in turn responsible for the occupation of the land and answered to the king. Later, the Portuguese realized the system was a failure (only two lots were successfully occupied) and took direct control of the failed captaincies.
After the initial attempts to find gold and silver failed, the Portuguese colonists adopted an economy based on the production of agricultural goods that were to be exported to Europe. Tobacco, cotton, cachaça and some other agricultural goods were produced, but sugar became by far the most important Brazilian colonial product until the early eighteenth century. The first sugarcane farms were established in the mid-16th century and were the key for success of the captaincies of São Vicente and Pernambuco, leading sugarcane plantations to quickly spread to other coastal areas in colonial Brazil. The period of sugar-based economy (1530-c.1700) is known as the "Sugarcane Cycle" in Brazilian history. Even though Brazilian sugar was reputed as being of high quality, the industry faced a crisis during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the Dutch and the French started producing sugar in the Antilles, located much closer to Europe, causing the sugar prices to fall.
During the eighteenth century, private explorers who called themselves the Bandeirantes found gold and diamond mines in the state of Minas Gerais. The exploration of these mines ended up financing the Portuguese Royal Court's debts for a long time. However, the predatory way in which such riches were explored by the Portuguese Crown harmed colonial Brazil with excessive taxes (at some point, taxes amounted up to one fifth of all the gold and diamonds mined in the country, or 20 percent of total production, named the quinto). Some popular movements supporting independence came about against the abusive taxes established by the metropolis, such as the Tiradentes incident in 1789, but they were often dismissed with violence by Portugal. Gold production declined towards the end of the eighteenth century, starting a period of relative stagnation of the Brazilian hinterland.
Empire
In 1808, the Portuguese court, fleeing from Napoleon’s troops which had invaded the territory of Portugal, moved aboard a large fleet, escorted by British men-of-war, with all the government apparatus to its then-colony, Brazil, establishing themselves in the city of Rio de Janeiro. From there the Portuguese king João VI ruled his huge empire for 13 years, and there he would have remained for the rest of his life if it were not for the turmoil aroused in Portugal due, among other reasons, to his long stay in Brazil after the end of Napoleon's reign.
After João VI returned to Portugal in 1821 due to the Liberal Revolution of 1820 that had erupted in the city of Porto, his heir-apparent Pedro became regent of the Kingdom of Brazil. Following a series of political events and disputes, Brazil achieved its independence from Portugal on September 7, 1822. On October 12, 1822, Dom Pedro was acclaimed as the first Emperor of Brazil. He was crowned on December 1, 1822. Brazil was one of only two countries among those of the 'new world' that housed an effective legal monarchical state (the other was Mexico), for a period of almost 90 years.
Organizing the new government quickly brought the differences between the Emperor and his leading subjects to the fore. In 1824, Pedro closed the Constituent Assembly that he had convened because he believed that body was endangering liberty. Pedro then produced a constitution modeled on that of Portugal (1822) and France (1814). It specified indirect elections and created the usual three branches of government but also added a fourth, the "moderating power", to be held by the Emperor. Pedro's government was considered economically and administratively inefficient. Political pressures eventually made the Emperor step down in April 7, 1831. He returned to Portugal leaving behind his five-year-old son Pedro. Brazil was then to be governed by regents from 1831 to 1840 until Pedro was old enough to assume his royal duties. The regency period was turbulent and marked by numerous local revolts including the Male Revolt, the largest urban slave rebellion in the Americas, which took place in Bahia, 1835.
On July 23, 1840, Pedro II was crowned Emperor. His government was highlighted by a substantial rise in coffee exports, the War of the Triple Alliance, and the end of slave trade from Africa in 1850, although slavery in Brazilian territory would only be abolished in 1888. When slavery was finally abolished, a large influx of European immigrants took place. By the 1870s, the Emperor's grasp on domestic politics had started deteriorating in face of crisis with the Roman Catholic Church, the Army and the slaveholders. The Republican movement slowly gained strength. In the end, the empire fell because the dominant classes no longer needed it to protect their interests. Indeed, imperial centralization ran counter to their desire for local autonomy. By 1889 Pedro II had stepped down and the Republican system had been adopted.
Republic
Pedro II was deposed on November 15, 1889 by a Republican military coup led by general Deodoro da Fonseca, who became the country’s first de facto president through military ascension. The country’s name became the Republic of the United States of Brazil (which in 1967 was changed to Federative Republic of Brazil). From 1889 to 1930, the government was a constitutional democracy, with the presidency alternating between the dominant states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. However, several requirements had to be fulfilled for people to be eligible to vote. Thus, democracy was actually restricted to a small portion of the population.
A military junta took control in 1930. Getúlio Vargas took office soon after, and would remain as dictatorial ruler (with a brief democratic period in between), until 1945. He was re-elected in 1951 and stayed in office until his suicide in 1954. After 1930, the successive governments continued industrial and agriculture growth and development of the vast interior of Brazil.
Provisional president Getúlio Dorneles Vargas ruled as dictator (1930–1934), congressionally elected president (1934–1937), and again dictator (1937–1945), with the backing of his revolutionary party coalition. He also served as a senator (1946–1951) and the democratically elected president (1951–1954). Vargas was a member of the gaucho oligarchy whose riches were based on land property, and rose to power through a system of patronage and clientelism, but he had a fresh vision of how Brazilian politics could be shaped to support national development. He understood that with the breakdown of direct relations between workers and employers in the ever-growing factories in Brazil, workers could eventually become the platform of a new form of political power — populism. By applying such insights inspired on Italian fascism, he would gradually establish such mastery over the Brazilian political world that he would stay in power for fifteen years. Vargas was responsible for Brazil's military role in World War II on the side of the Allies.
Juscelino Kubitschek's office years (1956-1961) were marked by the political campaign motto of plunging "50 anos em 5" (English: fifty years (of development) in five). Kubitschek sought to achieve this progress with the aid of foreign investment, which in turn would be given generous incentives such as profit remittances abroad, low taxes, privileges for the import of industrial machinery, and government grants of land. Kubitschek was responsible for the construction of Brasília, Brazil's ultra-modern capital, in the 1960s.
The military forces took office in Brazil in a coup d'état in 1964, and remained in power until March 1985, when it fell from grace because of political struggles between the regime and the Brazilian elites. Some historians may argue that the dismantling of the military dictatorship was merely a consequence of the regime's opening policy in the final years, but others will find that internal struggles for power within the government, combined with a strong popular disapproval of the dictatorship, were also partially responsible for the end of the regime. Just as the Brazilian regime changes of 1889, 1930, and 1945 unleashed competing political forces and caused divisions within the military, so too did the 1964 regime change. Tancredo Neves was elected president in an indirect election in 1985, as Brazil returned to civil government regime. He died before taking office, and the vice-president, José Sarney, was sworn in as president in his place.
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 corruption scandals were discovered by the media.
The vice-president, Itamar Franco, took office as the president. 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 pegged to the U.S. dollar, the real. The new-found economic stability in the country after years of undergoing hyperinflation scenarios increased the popularity of Fernando Henrique Cardoso as a politician. In the elections held on October 3, 1994, Fernando Henrique Cardoso ran for president and won. Cardoso followed a neoliberal scheme that included the privatization of various state-owned companies, limited intervention in employment relationships and, after the financial downturns in the late 1990s, a floating monetary exchange rate regime. Reelected in 1998, Cardoso guided Brazil through a wave of financial crises, including the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the Russian default in 1998. In 2000, Cardoso demanded the disclosure of some classified military files concerning Operation Condor, a network of South American military dictatorships that kidnapped and assassinated political opponents.