João Goulart
João Goulart was overthrown by a military coup in 1964, and Brazil was governed by generals for the next twenty-one years. Born in 1919 to a wealthy ranching family in Rio Grande do Sul, he was a protégé and neighbour of Getúlio Vargas, and entered national politics through the labour ministry in 1953, where he proposed doubling the minimum wage and was forced out by military pressure after five months. He was elected vice-president twice, on the opposing ticket both times, because Brazil elected the two offices separately. He became president in August 1961 when Jânio Quadros resigned after seven months, apparently expecting to be recalled on his own terms and finding that nobody wanted him back. The military ministers tried to block Goulart's succession and were forced to compromise: he took office under a hastily created parliamentary system that reduced his powers, and won them back in a referendum in 1963. His programme was a set of basic reforms — land redistribution, an extension of the vote to illiterates and enlisted men, a rent freeze, limits on profit remittances by foreign companies — announced at a rally of some 150,000 in March 1964. A sailors' mutiny days later, which he pardoned, convinced the officer corps that discipline itself was at stake. The coup began on 31 March, met almost no resistance, and had prompt American support. Goulart went into exile in Uruguay and died there in 1976. Torture, censorship and disappearances followed under the generals, and a truth commission reported in 2014.
- Lived: 1918 CE – 1976 CE
- Nationality: Brazilian
- Roles: president, politician, head_of_state
