History Facts about the City :
The city is mentioned officially for the first time when the second Portuguese exploratory expedition, commanded by Gaspar read, arrived in January 1502, the bay, the browser assumed, understandably, be the mouth of a river, thus giving the name to region of Rio de Janeiro. But only in 1530 the Portuguese court sent an expedition to colonize the area, rather than continue using it simply as a staging post for overseas adventures. The French, on the other hand, had been in and around Rio de Janeiro since the beginning of the century and were willing to fight for dominance in the region. In 1560, after a series of skirmishes, the Portuguese expelled the French. The beginning of the city as it was in the Hill of St. Januarius, later known as Castle Hill, and then in the Square today Fifteen vital center of Rio The Rio de Janeiro has developed thanks to its natural vocation as a port. At the same time that gold was discovered in Minas Gerais in the late seventeenth century, the Governor of Brazil became the Viceroy. Salvador was the capital of the colony, but the growing importance of the port of Rio secured the transfer of seat of power to the south to the city that would become, and still is, the intellectual and cultural center of the country. In 1808 the Portuguese royal family came to Rio de Janeiro, chosen refuge from the threat of Napoleonic invasion. When the royal family returned to Portugal and Brazil's independence was declared in 1822, the gold mines had been exhausted and had given way to another treasure: coffee. The growth continued through most of the nineteenth century, initially in the north to Saint Kitts and Tijuca, and then toward the south, through Glória, Flamengo and Botafogo. However, in 1889, the abolition of slavery and poor harvests halted progress.Rio, now called the Federal District, remained the political center and capital of the country. At the beginning of the twentieth century came the wide streets and imposing buildings, mostly in the French style fin siecle. The Rio de Janeiro held its ground until the inauguration of Brasilia as the capital of the republic in 1960. Capital of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the city remains the cultural and social center of the country.