"Rio de Janeiro - The Wonderful City " a Rio de Janeiro Travel Page by MartaBotelho

Brazil was first discovered in 1500 by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral. Two years later, on the first of January, another Portuguese navigator, sails by the Sugar Loaf (Pao de Acucar) and gets a glimpse of the Guanabara Bay. They mistook the Bay for the estuary of a river, and so they name the area "Rio de Janeiro" or January's River!
A lot of expeditions came afterwards, always just passing by. Until the year of 1504, when Goncalo Coelho comes to shore and makes the first contact with the Tamoio Indigenes. He builds a stone house that the Tamoios called "Cari-oca" in their language. "Cari" means "white men" and "oca" means "house". So you can figure what they meant with those words. Anyway the word Carioca is still alive in Portuguese: it's the name of the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro!
In 1555 a French expedition arrives at the Bay. It is the beginning of a lot of wars against the Portuguese. The Tamoios gathered their forces together with the French and they fought against the Portuguese for quite a few years. In the first of March of 1565 Estacio de Sa names the city for the fist time at the feet of the Sugar Loaf: Sao Sabastiao do Rio de Janeiro to honor the Portuguese King D. Sebastiao. On that same day two years later, the Portuguese take control of the city once and for all. From then on the city started prospering and a lot of invasions came but all of them were repudiated.
In 1808 the Portuguese Royal family settles in Rio de Janeiro running away from Portugal from the French Invasions. And in 1815 the country is called for the first time "Brazil" as a kingdom that makes part of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarve. In 1822 the Regent Prince D. Pedro refuses to go back to Portugal and later demands Brazil's independence. Before the end of that same year Brazil proclaims it's independence and the first flags are blessed and distributed. They are the flags we know today and the colors were used as a compliment to the Prince that used a green and yellow scarf in a social event a few months earlier. Brazil was finally an independent country and Rio de Janeiro was it's capital city!!

The Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport is named after a famous Brazilian musician. His style was Bossa Nova, one of the plenty music styles that Brazil grants us with. He's the one that wrote the famous song "Garota de Ipanema" together with Vinicius de Morais (another Brazilian musician).
The airport sits in an island called "Ilha do Governador" or Govenor's Island. It has 42 square kilometers and for that reason it's the bigest island of the Guanabara Bay. It used to be a beach resort for the high class people, but with the city growth it became like a small city by itself. It's surrounded by military compounds and ports. It was later connected to the Island of Fundao and to the main Continent by a bridge.
The airport was constructed in 1952 and it connects Rio with Europe and the rest of the World. It was first called Galeao, but the name changed to Antonio Carlos Jobim as a way of honoring him after his death. It has plenty of infrastructures such as nice neighbourhoods, old churches and gardens. It is on the North area of the city though, which is known to be very dangerous. But inside the Island it is very safe because the security is very strong there. You can not go into the Island without passing first by security checks.

Rio de Janeiro has remained on the travel books as a very dangerous tourism spot. People come expecting the worse and truth is that it isn't that bad at all! I you follow the normal safety rules then it will be very unlikely to happen some harm.
The major problem comes from the drug cartels. Most of the headguys are in prision, and so their forces outside pressure the State Government by attacking in specific points... some of them hotels, tourist areas and shopping areas. But do not be alarmed! Those incidents happen so very often and usually no one gets hurt for the exception of the portraitors themselfs or Federal Policemans. Sometimes they do call to the shopping buiseness and tell them not to open their establishments on a certain day. They don't open and you do go to the places. This happens more in Copacabana and Ipanema. The buiseness there lives out of the tourist money, so if they are closed, there's no income and if there's no income the State's Economy suffers. Their goal is not to make a hard life for the tourists but to annoy the Government. Pettytheaft is as common there as in any other big city. The subway is much safer than the buses on that regard, but unfortunately it doesn't cover much area.
Traffic is a major problem especially in the morning and in the end of the afternoon. But you can walk to most of the places or there are buses that use special lanes and streets and you can get to places faster. If you take a taxi be sure it has it's taximeter working and it has it set for "1" during daytime and "2" only at nightime. The taximeters have a metal seel to prevent it from beeing manipulated. If you see a broken seel take another taxi.
So just go and enjoy the beaches and city life because it's definitely worth it!
Take a look at my Warnings or Dangers Travel Tips to know more.