I am reading – very slowly – a history of Brazil. A few interesting facts about Brazilian history (the interesting facts stop at 1810, because that’s as far as I’ve got):

  • Jesuits ran all the schools in Brazil from the 15th to the mid 18th century, at which point they were kicked out by the Portuguese colonial government who thought the priests were getting too powerful. Jesuit education was carried out in the Lingua Geral (general language) – a standardised form of the American Indian Tupi language which was also therefore the day-to-day language of most people in the country. It’s weird to think that if the Jesuits and the Portuguese government hadn’t fallen out, Braziians would be speaking Tupi today instead of Portuguese.
  • Diamonds were discovered in 1726 in the middle of the state of Minas Gerais (where I am) in the town of Tijuca. It was more a question of realising than discovering though: long before 1726 Tijuca residents were finding shiny see-through stones in the street, and principally using them to keep score in card games. This may be an insight into the Brazilian psyche.
  • In 1808 Napoleon invaded Portugal and the British helped the Portuguese court to escape to Brazil, where the King and Queen set up home to wait out the problems in Europe. I’d known about this for ages, buts what I’ve just found out in my new history book is the sheer scale of the operation: the British evacaution took 15,000 royals and major and minor nobles to Brazil. They took half the money in circulation in Portugal with them.