Brazil (Alternity)

Brazil, officially the Empire of Brazil (Portuguese: Império do Brasil) is the largest nation in South America in both size and population, as well as the seventh largest in the world by population. It is bordered by Argentina to the south, Peru and Bolivia to the east, and Colombia and French Guiana to the north. It is the only nation in the Americas whose official language is Portuguese. Originally discovered by Portugal's Pedro Cabral in 1500 and first colonized in 1533, Brazil was a royal colony of Portugal for nearly 300 years. In 1808, the King of Portugal, Dom João VI, fled the advancing armies of France under Napoleon Bonaparte and established Rio de Janeiro as the temporary capital of the entire Portuguese Empire until 1821, when he returned to Europe and tried to return Brazil to colonial status. The Brazilians resisted, however, and his son, Pedro de Alcântara, was subsequently crowned Emperor Dom Pedro I in 1822. Three years later, the Portuguese armies in South America surrendered and officially recognized Brazil as independent.

Pedro I's sudden abdication of the throne in 1831 left a six year-old son, Pedro II as the new emperor, and since he was still rather young, a temporary regency was created to rule on his behalf until he came of age. But internal disputes within the regency forced the General Assembly to declare the young Pedro II of age when he was only 14 years old, in July 1840 (he would be crowned Emperor one year later). Pedro II's sixty-year reign was positively marked by internal stability, economic, political, and societal growth (with the abolition of slavery in 1888) and the rise of Brazil as a regional power. He is consistently regarded and ranked as one of the greatest Brazilians in the nation's history (and sometimes the greatest). Following his death of natural causes in 1901 at the age of 76, his son, Pedro Afonso (b. 1848) succeeded him as Pedro III and continued in his father's footsteps by further advancing the national economy and modernizing and enlarging the military. He is frequently credited for bringing Brazil into the modern age and starting the nation on its rise to becoming a new superpower during the Cold War.

His death at the age of 80 in 1928 marked the rise of his son, Pedro Miguel, to power as Pedro IV. The Great Depression would take hold on the nation just over a year later, but with the Brazilian economy built on the strength of previous decades, its effects were blunted considerably. Pedro IV, however, is best known for leading Brazil through World War II; he gave the national declaration of war against Nazi Germany on August 17, 1941, days after a U-boat attack on a Britain-bound convoy that sank a Brazilian Navy destroyer. The Argentine Front in the south was the sole battleground of the war on the continent, where, despite early Argentine surprise attacks and significant advancements into the empire's southern provinces in 1941-42, the now fully modernized Brazilian armed forces managed a decisive rout of the German-aligned Argentines that drove them back into their own territory for the remainder of the war (thus freeing Brazilian manpower for the European theater).

The nation's rise as a superpower is considered by many to have begun in the early 1950s, when, using experience gained from having worked with the United States on the Manhattan Project, Brazil tested its first atomic bomb in the spring of 1953 and joined the growing nuclear circle. Despite its new found status as an infant superpower, Brazil joined the Non-Aligned Movement in the early 1960s to prevent a potential tipping point between the United States and USSR in the Cold War (though it was an American ally). Following the collapse of the USSR in 1991 (by which time current Emperor Luiz I, great-great grandson to Pedro II, had been in power for 21 years; Pedro IV had died in 1970 with no male heirs), Brazil subsequently and actively joined NATO, a role in which it continues to this day.

Brazil is a driving force in Latin American and global politics, as a superpower nearly equaling that of the United States. It is a founding and permanent member of the United Nations, the G-11, G-30, and the South American Union (SAU), in addition to joining NATO in the post-Cold War era.

World War II and the Argentine front (1941-1946)
Main Article: World War II (1938-1946)

Military
Main Article: Armed Forces of Brazil

Territory
Main Article: Provinces of Brazil