What is the Special in Brazil?

Rio de Janeiro became a World Heritage Site in 2012. Its annual Carnival attracts around 2 million revellers each day.

Brazil and West Africa were once attached but were broken apart by plate tectonics. Notice how they fit together on a map.

The 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will be the first time a South American country has the right to host them.

With 82 per cent of its population tracing their ancestry back to the sorry days of slavery, Salvador is described as “the biggest African city outside Africa”.

Sugar Loaf Mountain, in Rio de Janeiro, is a volcanic plug.

There's an underground river 4 KM (2.4 mi) beneath the Amazon River in Brazil, that might be as long, but hundreds of times wider.

Henry Ford spent huge amounts of money trying to create rubber plantations and factories in the middle of the Amazon jungle.

A large portion of Brazil is underlain by Precambrian shield, some of which is older than 2.4 billion years.

There's a colony in Brazil founded by 2,000 to 4,000 Confederate refugees who left the U.S. after losing the Civil War.

A town built in imitation of the American Midwest, and called, modestly, Fordlandia, grew up on the shores of the Tapajos river.

Brazil produce large quantities of iron ore but also copper, gold and diamonds.

Voting is mandatory in Brazil.

The remains of his ultimately shattered dream can still be seen.

Brazil is self-sufficient in energy.

About 4 million slaves were taken from Africa to Brazil, about 40% of all in the Americas.

This industrial ghost town is difficult to get to, but worth the effort.

Petrobras, the state owned oil and gas company, has made some huge oil discoveries offshore in the Atlantic lying underneath salt layers.

There's a colony in Brazil founded by 2,000 to 4,000 Confederate refugees who left the U.S. after losing the Civil War.

Other strange abandoned sites are the Viaduct Petrobras – a stretch of elevated road in the middle of the jungle and part of the Rio-Santos Highway until plans were altered – and the Terra Encantada theme park, closed due to safety concerns.

The Itaipu Dam, located on the border between Brazil and Paraguay, is the second largest hydroelectric producer in the world. The dam is 7.7 kilometers long and 196 meters high.

There's an underground river 4 KM (2.4 mi) beneath the Amazon River in Brazil, that might be as long, but hundreds of times wider.

Fishermen in Laguna, in the southeast of Brazil, are able to use dolphins to help them catch dinner.

The country effectively shuts down for Carnival with partying day and night. It is held from the Friday to Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.

Brazil was the only independent South American country to send ground troops to fight in WWII, with over 25,000 soldiers.

The animals will herd fish towards waiting nets, even flicking their head to indicate that the trap has been set.