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Portal:Brazil/Selected biography/1
Gilberto Aparecido da Silva (born October 7, 1976 in Lagoa da Prata, Minas Gerais, Brazil), commonly known as Gilberto Silva (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒiwˈbɛʁtu ˈsiwvɐ]), is a Brazilian footballer. He currently plays for the Greek club Panathinaikos, as a defensive midfielder. Gilberto was raised in a poor family and as a child he balanced playing football with various labour jobs. He began his football career in 1997 with América Mineiro, where good form earned him a move to Atlético Mineiro in 2000. He became a star player for Atlético, playing for three years in the Brazilian Campeonato Brasileiro Série A. He came to particular prominence when he helped the Brazilian national team win the 2002 FIFA World Cup, playing in all seven of Brazil's matches.
In August 2002, for a fee of £4.5 million, he joined Arsenal, with whom he won the 2004 FA Premier League, and two FA Cup trophies. In his first five seasons with the club, he played 208 games and scored 23 goals. On 19 August 2006 he scored Arsenal's first competitive goal at the newly built Emirates Stadium. He was made vice-captain of Arsenal in 2006. In 2007, he was selected as Brazil captain for the Copa América tournament, which Brazil went on to win.
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Mário de Andrade (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈmaɾiu dʒi ɐ̃ˈdɾadʒi]; October 9, 1893 – February 25, 1945) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. One of the founders of Brazilian modernism, he virtually created modern Brazilian poetry with the publication of his Paulicéia Desvairada (Hallucinated City) in 1922. He has had an enormous influence on Brazilian literature in the 20th and 21st centuries, and as a scholar and essayist—he was a pioneer of the field of ethnomusicology—his influence has reached far beyond Brazil.
Andrade was the central figure in the avant-garde movement of São Paulo for twenty years. Trained as a musician and best known as a poet and novelist, Andrade was personally involved in virtually every discipline that was connected with São Paulo modernism, and became Brazil's national polymath. He was the driving force behind the Week of Modern Art, the 1922 event that reshaped both literature and the visual arts in Brazil. After working as a music professor and newspaper columnist he published his great novel, Macunaíma, in 1928. At the end of his life, he became the founding director of São Paulo's Department of Culture, formalizing a role he had long held as the catalyst of the city's—and the nation's—entry into artistic modernity.
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Alberto Santos-Dumont (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈsɐ̃tus duˈmõw̃]; July 20, 1873 – July 23, 1932) was an early pioneer of aviation. He was born and died in Brazil. He spent most of his adult life in France. His contributions to aviation took place while he was living in Paris, France.
Santos-Dumont designed, built, and flew the first practical dirigible balloons. In doing so he became the first person to demonstrate that routine, controlled flight was possible. This "conquest of the air", in particular winning the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize on October 19, 1901 on a flight that rounded the Eiffel Tower, made him one of the most famous people in the world during the early 20th century. In addition to his pioneering work in airships, Santos-Dumont made the first public European flight of an airplane in Paris on October 23, 1906. That aircraft, designated 14-bis or Oiseau de proie (French for "bird of prey"), was the first to take off, fly, and land without the use of catapults, high winds, launch rails, or other external assistance. For this achievement, Santos-Dumont is known in Brazil as "The Father of Aviation".
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Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira (born June 26, 1942), better known as Gilberto Gil (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒiwˈbɛʁtu ˈʒiw]), is a Brazilian singer, guitarist, and songwriter, known for both his musical innovation and his political commitment. Since 2003, he has been serving as his country's Minister of Culture in the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Gil began playing music as a child and was still a teenager when he joined his first band. He started out as a bossa nova musician, eventually writing songs that reflected a new focus on political awareness and social activism. He was a key figure in the Música Popular Brasileira and Tropicalismo movements of the 1960s, alongside artists such as longtime collaborator Caetano Veloso. The Brazilian military regime that took power in 1964 saw both Gil and Veloso as a threat, and the two were held for nine months in 1969 before they were told to leave the country. Gil moved to London, but returned to the Brazilian state of Bahia in 1972 and continued his musical career, as well as working as a politician and environmental advocate. Gil's musical style incorporates an eclectic range of influences, including rock, Brazilian genres including samba and forró, African music, and reggae.
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Maurício Gugelmin (born April 20, 1963 in Joinville) is a former racing driver from Brazil. He took part in both Formula One and the Champ Car World Series. He participated in 80 Formula One grands prix, debuting in 1988 for the March team. He achieved one top-three finish and scored a total of ten championship points in the series. He competed in the Champ Car series between 1993 and 2001, starting 147 races. He won one race, in 1997 in Vancouver, finishing fourth in the championship that year. His best result in the Indianapolis 500 was in 1995 where he started and finished in sixth position, leading 59 laps. For a period, he held the world speed record for a closed race track, set at California Speedway in 1997 at a speed of 240.942 mph (387.759 km/h). Gugelmin retired at the end of 2001 after a year that included the death of his son.
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Adriana Lima (Portuguese pronunciation: [adɾiˈɐnɐ ˈlimɐ]; born June 12, 1981) is a Brazilian model known for her work with Victoria's Secret lingerie giant and Maybelline cosmetics. Lima was discovered at age 13, and entered and finished first in Brazil's Ford Supermodel of the World competition with 15, finishing second the following year before signing with Elite Model Management in New York City.
Lima, is of African and Caribbean descent, her family in the Caribbean are from Barbados also where of distant Japanese, French and Italian heritage, .Family to the Limas, Bests, Carerus, and Selman's. Native South American and Swiss descent, was born in the northeastern coastal town of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil on June 12, 1981. Her father, of which she was estranged for most of her life is Nelson Torres and her mother, Maria da Graça Lima, was a social worker who gave birth to Lima at the age of 18. Lima revealed that her father had walked out on her family when she was six months old, but has been making recent attempts to reconcile. In late 2007, Lima revealed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that she has two half brothers, aged 7 and 11, from her father's second marriage. Coming from a poor family, Adriana's first travel was on a plane at the age of 15. She was raised mostly by her Mother, and Grandmother.
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Ayrton Senna da Silva (Portuguese pronunciation: [aˈiʁtõw̃ ˈsenɐ da ˈsiwvɐ] , March 21, 1960 – May 1, 1994) was a Brazilian racing driver and triple Formula One world champion. He remains the last Grand Prix driver killed while driving a Formula One car. A kart racer from an early age, Senna won the British Formula 3 championship in 1983 and made his Formula One debut with Toleman the next year. He moved to Lotus-Renault in 1985, and won six Grands Prix over the next three seasons.
In 1988 he joined Frenchman Alain Prost at McLaren-Honda, the top driver and team at the time, and won that year's championship. He and Prost developed a heated rivalry, which is regarded as the bitterest in F1 history. Senna also won the 1990 and 1991 F1 championships. In the next two years with McLaren, despite driving an inferior car, Senna won races and challenged for the 1993 world title, finishing runner-up to Prost. He switched to the then-dominant Williams Renault team for the 1994 season. At the third race of the year millions of fans witnessed his fatal crash live on global TV coverage during the San Marino Grand Prix.
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Ronaldo de Assis Moreira (born March 21, 1980 in Porto Alegre), commonly known as Ronaldinho or Ronaldinho Gaúcho (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʁonaɫˈdʒiɲu ɡaˈuʃu]), is a Brazilian footballer who plays for Serie A side AC Milan and the Brazil national team.
Ronaldinho, meaning "little Ronaldo," is better known in Brazil by the nickname Ronaldinho Gaúcho, in order to distinguish him from Ronaldo, who was already called "Ronaldinho" in Brazil. Ronaldo simply went by his first name upon his move to Europe, thereby allowing Ronaldinho to drop the "Gaúcho" and remain simply as Ronaldinho. Among his many achievements and accolades, Ronaldinho is a two-time winner of the FIFA World Player of the Year, European Footballer of the Year and FIFPro World Player of the Year awards. He became a Spanish citizen in January 2007.
Portal:Brazil/Selected biography/9
Daniela Mercury (Portuguese pronunciation: [dɐ̃niˈɛlɐ ˈmɛʁkuɾi]; born on July 28, 1965 in Salvador, Bahia) is a Latin Grammy Award-winning Brazilian axé, samba-reggae and MPB singer, songwriter and record producer. Since her breakthrough, Mercury has become one of the best known Brazilian female singers, selling over 8 million albums in her home country and almost 12 million albums worldwide.
Her mother is Liliana Mercuri, a social worker of Italian ancestry, and her father is Antônio Fernando de Abreu Ferreira de Almeida, a Portuguese industrial mechanic. Mercury spent her childhood in a house in the Brotas neighborhood with her four siblings: Tom, Cristiana, Vânia (who would also become a singer) and Marcos. When Mercury was eight years old she started to take dance lessons (classic ballet, African dances and jazz). At thirteen, she decided to become a singer (apparently influenced by the work of Elis Regina) and at sixteen, she started to sing in trio elétricos. Two years later, she entered the Federal University of Bahia's School of Dance.
Portal:Brazil/Selected biography/10
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Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Portuguese pronunciation: [feʁˈnɐ̃dʊ ẽˈʁikɪ kaʁˈdozʊ], (born June 18, 1931) – also known by his initials FHC – was the President of the Federative Republic of Brazil for two terms from January 1, 1995 to January 1, 2003. He is also an accomplished sociologist. Born in Rio de Janeiro, he has lived in São Paulo most of his life. Cardoso is a widower (he was married to Ruth Valença Correia Leite Cardoso until her death on June 24, 2008) and has three children.
Educated as a sociologist, he was a Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Universidade de São Paulo. He was President of the International Sociological Association (ISA), from 1982 to 1986. He is a member of the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has penned several books. He was also Associate Director of Studies in the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and then visiting professor at the Collège de France and later at the Paris Nanterre University.
Portal:Brazil/Selected biography/11
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Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒeˈtuliu doɾˈnɛliz vaɾɡɐs]; April 19, 1882 – August 24, 1954) served as President of Brazil from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 until his suicide in 1954. Vargas was born in São Borja, Rio Grande do Sul, on April 19, 1883, to Manuel do Nascimento Vargas and Cândida Dornelles Vargas. The scion of a traditional family of "gaúchos", he embarked on a military career at first, then turned to the study of law.
Entering Republican politics, he was elected to the Rio Grande do Sul state legislature and later to the federal Chamber of Deputies, where he became the floor leader for his state's delegation in Congress. He served briefly as Secretary of the Treasury under President Washington Luís from which post he resigned to enter the gubernatorial race in his home state. Once elected Governor of Rio Grande do Sul, he became a leading figure in the opposition, urging the end of electoral corruption through the adoption of the universal and secret ballot. He and his wife Darcy Lima Sarmanho, whom he married in March 1911, had five children.
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João Teixeira de Faria (born June 24, 1942), known also as João de Deus (Portuguese pronunciation: [juˈɐ̃w̃ dʒi ˈdews]; "John of God"), is a medium and so-called "psychic surgeon" in Brazil. He is based in Abadiânia, a small town in the state of Goiás, southwest of Brasília. João de Deus was born João Teixeira de Faria in Cachoeira da Fumaça, Goiás. Not much is known about João's early life.
There are no records save those in the memories of his associates, and they differ widely. Even João himself is a poor source of precise details. His most widely known biography is The Miracle Man, written by, Robert Pellegrino-Estrich, who runs tours to Abadiânia and cannot be considered an unbiased source. João has no medical training and describes himself as a "simple farmer." João completed only two years of education and spent many years travelling from village to village in the states of Goias and Minas Gerais healing people and administering the local herbs to whoever turned up wherever he stopped.
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Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (pronounced [luˈiz iˈnasiu ˈlulɐ da ˈsiwvɐ]; born October 27, 1945), known simply as Lula, was the thirty-fifth President of Brazil and a founding member of the country's Workers' Party. He was elected on October 27, 2002, and took office on January 1, 2003. On October 29, 2006, he was re-elected, extending his term as President until January 1, 2011. Luiz Inácio da Silva was born on October 27, 1945 in Caetés (then a district of Garanhuns), Pernambuco.
He is the seventh of eight children of Aristides Inácio da Silva and Eurídice Ferreira de Melo. Two weeks after Lula's birth, his father moved to Santos with Valdomira Ferreira de Góis, a cousin of Eurídice. On December 1952, when Lula was only seven years old, his mother decided to migrate to São Paulo with her children to reencounter with her husband. After a journey of thirteen days in a pau-de-arara (the open cargo area of a truck), they arrived in Guarujá and discovered that Aristides had formed second family with Valdomira.
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Romário de Souza Faria (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʁoˈmaɾiu]; born January 29, 1966 in Rio de Janeiro), better known simply as Romário, is a former Brazilian football center forward who helped the Brazil national team win the 1994 FIFA World Cup and has been one of the most prolific strikers in the world since the 1990s, having had successful tenures with European clubs PSV Eindhoven and FC Barcelona, and in Brazil with Flamengo, Fluminense and Vasco da Gama before retiring in 2008. His professional career extended past age 40, an age by which most professional footballers have retired. He officially announced his retirement from professional football on April 15, 2008 at the age of 42.
He was selected the FIFA World Player of the Year and won the World Cup Golden Ball in 1994 and named as one of the Top 125 greatest living footballers as part of FIFA's 100th anniversary celebration.
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Tom Zé (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˌtõw̃ ˈzɛ]; born Antônio José Santana Martins, 11 October 1936 in Irará, Bahia, Brazil) is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer who was influential in the Tropicália movement of 1960s Brazil. After the peak of the Tropicália period, Zé went into relative obscurity: it was only in the 1990s, when the musician and label head David Byrne discovered an album recorded by Zé many years earlier, that he returned to performing and releasing new material.
Tom Zé grew up in the small town of Irará, Bahia in the northeastern Sertão. He would later claim that his hometown was "pre-Gutenbergian", as information was primarily transferred through oral communication. As a child, he was influenced by Brazilian musicians such as Luiz Gonzaga and Jackson do Pandeiro. Zé became interested in music by listening to the radio, and moved to Salvador to pursue a degree. He later relocated to São Paulo and began his career in popular music there. Much of his early work involved his wry impressions of the massive metropolitan area, coming from a small town in the relatively poor northeast.
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Edson Arantes do Nascimento, KBE (born October 23, 1940 in Três Corações, Brazil), best known by his nickname Pelé (Portuguese pronunciation: [peˈlɛ]), is a former Brazilian football player, rated by many as the greatest footballer of all time. He was given the title of Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee. He was born in Três Corações, Brazil, the son of a Fluminense footballer Dondinho and Maria Celeste Arantes.
He was named after the American inventor Thomas Edison, but was misspelt Edson, which showed on his birth certificate. He was originally nicknamed Dico by his family. "Pelé" until his school days, when it is claimed he was given it because of his pronunciation of the name of his favorite player, local Vasco da Gama goalkeeper Bilé, which he misspoke "Pilé". He originally disliked the nickname, being suspended from school for punching the classmate that coined it.
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Xuxa (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈʃuʃɐ] "shoo-shah" -, Maria da Graça Xuxa Meneghel, March 27, 1963, Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) is a Brazilian Grammy Award Winner, television actress, singer and children's television show host. Her various shows have been broadcast in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. Xuxa is of German, Austrian, Italian, and Polish descent.
She is a famous idol to Latin American children since the late 1980s and going through 1990's and 00's. Her achievements include the best-selling album in the history of Brazil, and being the singer with the second highest total of number-one hits in the Brazilian charts, surpassed only by Daniela Mercury. Xuxa has some of the biggest box office results in Brazilian history and a fortune of over $250 million dollars.
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Rubens Gonçalves "Rubinho" Barrichello (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈʁubẽjs baʁiˈkɛlu], born May 23, 1972 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian Formula One racing driver. He is currently racing for Williams F1.
Barrichello has scored the fifth highest points total in Formula One history. Barrichello drove for Ferrari from 2000 to 2005, as Michael Schumacher's teammate, enjoying considerable success including finishing as championship runner-up in 2002 and 2004. Schumacher's retirement at the end of 2006 made Barrichello the most experienced driver on the grid, and at the 2008 Turkish Grand Prix he became the most experienced driver in F1 history. He became the first driver to reach 300 Grand Prix entries and 300 starts, doing so in 2010. He is also the incumbent chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association.
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Wilson Fittipaldi Júnior (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈwiwsõw̃ ˌfitʃiˈpawdʒi]; born December 25, 1943, São Paulo, Brazil) is a Brazilian former racing driver and Formula One team owner. He participated in 38 World Championship Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on May 1, 1972, scoring a total of three championship points. He ran the Fittipaldi Formula One team between 1974 and 1982. He also participated in numerous non-Championship Formula One races.
Born on Christmas day 1943, Wilson Fittipaldi Jr is the eldest son of prominent motorsports journalist and radio commentator Wilson Sr and his wife Juzy, who had both raced production cars shortly after the Second World War. Wilson Sr was also responsible for the first Mil Milhas race in 1956, in São Paulo, having been inspired by the 1949 Italian Mille Miglia.
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Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʁiˈkaɾdu iˈzɛksõw duˈsɐ̃tus ˈlejtʃi]; born April 22, 1982 in Brasília), better known as Kaká, is a Brazilian midfielder who plays for Italian Serie A club A.C. Milan and the Brazilian national team. He was the recipient of both the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year awards in 2007, and was named in the 2008 Time 100.
Kaká was born to Simone Cristina dos Santos Leite and Bosco Izecson Pereira Leite. He has a younger brother, Rodrigo (known as Digão), who has followed in his footsteps by playing football for Milan. When he was seven, his family moved to São Paulo. His school had arranged him in a local youth club called "Alphaville," who qualified to the final in a local tournament. There he was discovered by São Paulo FC who offered an assignment.