History
The civil government was transferred from Rio de Janeiro's Catete Palace to Brasília on April 21, 1960, which was then split off from Goiás (major part) and Minas Gerais. After the transfer, the municipality of Rio de Janeiro became the Estado da Guanabara (State of Guanabara), which existed from 1960 until 1975 when the State of Guanabara and the State of Rio de Janeiro merged and assumed the name of Rio de Janeiro State, having as capital the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Originally, the majority of the population consisted of "Candango" workers from other states who built the capital and federal government employees who were transferred to the new capital. The capital is a thoroughly planned city with designated areas for residence, businesses, schools, churches, etc. No streets have names, but are identified instead by letters and numbers arranged in a geographical system according to blocs (Q-Quadras) and sectors (S-Setor e.g.: SB - Setor Bancario or "Bank Section"). Originally built for up to one million inhabitants, the city now has more than twice that number. Due to its complex organization, the growth of the city itself has been slow. This has forced many to settle in neighboring cities around Brasília, which now house a significant percentage of the whole population.
Read more about this topic: Federal District (Brazil)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)