Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, Brazil was inhabited by people who might have migrated from Asia over 10000 years ago. By the time the Europeans arrived in 1500 AD, there were probably about 3 million native people from many tribes and speaking many languages living on the land. They were mostly semi-nomadic tribes, with the largest population living on the coast and along river banks.
Present-day Brazil was born with some degree of divine guidance. After Columbus’ first voyage to the New World in 1493, the Spaniards wanted to keep everything over there to themselves, and not to leave much to their rivals, the Portuguese. They somehow managed to get the Pope to decree splitting the world, so to speak, between the Spaniards and the Portuguese by drawing a demarcation line. After an initial proposal, protests from the Portuguese that its share was too small and negotiations, a line was drawn down the Atlantic so that anything about 1100 miles of Cape Verde Islands would go to Spain, and Portuguese would keep the territories each of this line. This was more or less how the size of Brazil was determined. In 1500, the Spaniards and the Portuguese both reached South America, and with the prior agreement, Brazil went to Portugal. It is the only country in South America that was ruled by Portugal, and is the only Portuguese-speaking country in that continent.
Since then, Brazil became a Portuguese colony. In 1808, during the Napoleonic War, Portugal was overrun by French, which caused the Portuguese king and his family to flee to Rio de Janeiro, making it the new capital of the Portuguese Empire. In 1821, the king returned to Lisbon, and in the following year, his son declared Brazil independent of Portugal to form the Brazilian Empire. The Brazilian Empire lasted only till 1889, when the country was turned into a federal republic by a coup led by the army. Meanwhile, African slaves were brought into Brazil until 1888 when slavery was abolished.
The federal republic lasted until 1930, when another military coup brought down the government. Since then the country was run by a string of appointed or elected presidents until 1964, when the army stepped in again and appointed several senior army officers to lead the country. It was in 1989 that Brazil finally had its first popularly elected government.
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