Brasilia was inaugurated on April 21, 1960, as Brazil's new capital, replacing R

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Brasília Opens as Capital: Brazil's Leap to the Future

Brasilia was inaugurated on April 21, 1960, as Brazil's new capital, replacing Rio de Janeiro after just 41 months of construction. President Juscelino Kubitschek had promised "fifty years of progress in five" and the new city was the centerpiece. Architects Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa designed a modernist urban plan shaped like an airplane or cross, with government buildings along a central axis. The construction effort employed 60,000 workers, many from the impoverished northeast, who built the city from bare cerrado grassland. Critics called it sterile and inhuman, a city designed for cars rather than pedestrians. Brasilia is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site with 3 million residents, though Brazilian cultural and economic life still centers on Sao Paulo and Rio.

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April 21, 1960

66 years ago

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Brasília Opens as Capital: Brazil's Leap to the Future

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