Brazil claimed their independence from Portugal in 1822, creating the empire of Brazil that lasted until 1889. Pedro II was given the throne when he was 5 yrs old.

In 1889 there was a coup where Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca  overthrew Pedro II and declared Brazil a republic though it operated as a dictatorship. There were elections but they were rigged and the country suffered from many economic problems.

Then in 1930 there was another coup, lead by Vargas. They created a new constitution in 1934 that shut down congress and gave Vargas all the power.

There was another coup that lead to a populist government and more elections. Vargas was removed from government but he ran again and in 1950 he ran for president again and won. He founded the He founded the Petrobras Brazilian State Oil Enterprise, which is an oil company owned by the state of Brazil.

In 1964 there was another coup and this lead to a military dictatorship and a mandatory two party system. Military-sanctioned indirect elections were held for most elected positions.

The opposition party won an election and José Sarney took office. The economy isn’t doing well and the inflation is devastating. This is in the 1990’s and there’s a collar government and Sarney was removed due to a scandal. Itamar, the vice president was moved to president. Launched something called Plano Real an economic plan to fix the hyperinflation. No one thought he could do it, it looked too much like previous plans but it did work.

Carodo was the minister of economics for the Plano Real and was elected president in 1995. He privatized a lot of government services.

In 2003 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva  is elected. He’s a popular president but, there was a corruption scandal. he was convicted of money laundering in 2017. Dilma Rousseff  worked on his campaign and became his chief of staff. Silva groomed her to be his successor.

Rousseff was born  in Brazil on 14 December 1947. She became the first woman president of Brazil after growing up working with a left wing organization that opposed the government. She was imprisoned for three years on the charge of subversion and during that time was subjected to torture by her captors. When she was released she went back to school and earned her bachelor's degree and got involved in local politics.

She had many smaller roles in government but her big break came when she helped with Silva’s campaign.

When she ran for president she lost the first round by not getting over 50% of the votes. This triggered a second round of voting and then she won with 56% of votes. She was sworn into office on January 1, 2011.

Corruption charges hit her right away. They lead to 5 of her cabinet members resigning, all holdovers from Silva’s organization.

In November 2012 six more officials are arrested on charges of influence peddling and corruption. Rousseff fired two of them.  They were accused of being involved in a scheme to bribe members of the Chamber of Deputies, and it alleged that she was involved.

While this happened the economy is suffering and the banks tried to reduce interest rates and lowering the reserve requirement for banks. It was Rousseff trying to mess with the numbers so things looked better than they were.

This also lead to protests from the middle class.

Rousseff is reelected despite all this. Sources say it was largelt due to the smear campaign she ran against the other candidate.

Her second term started poorly due to the poor economy and the Petrobras scandal, which broke in 2014. It alleged millions of dollars in kickbacks from corporations to the oil company (which is government owned) so they can get cheaper contracts. Most members of Congress that were accused were part of her party.

This lead to Operation Car Wash, which the US was involved in and helped reveal the scandal. The public associated Rousseff  with the scandal and her approval ratings fell to 14%. It’s become known as the largest corruption scandal in Brazil’