Brazilian Army in the context of "Cabeça do Cachorro"

Jair Messias Bolsonaro (Brazilian Portuguese: [ʒaˈiʁ meˈsi.ɐz bowsoˈnaɾu] ; born 21 March 1955) is a Brazilian politician and former military officer who served as the 38th president of Brazil from 2019 to 2023. He subsequently was convicted of attempting a coup and sentenced to prison.

Born in Glicério, São Paulo, Bolsonaro began serving in the Brazilian Army in 1973 and graduated from the Military Academy of Agulhas Negras in 1977. He attracted publicity in 1986 after he wrote an article for Veja magazine criticizing the low wages of military officers, after which he was arrested and detained for fifteen days. He left the army and was elected to the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro two years later. In 1990 he was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a representative for the state of Rio de Janeiro. During his 27-year tenure as a congressman he became known for his national conservatism. Bolsonaro entered the 2018 presidential election, during which he began advocating economically liberal and pro-market policies. After surviving an assassination attempt on 6 September, he led in the 7 October first-round results and defeated Fernando Haddad in the 28 October runoff.

The United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (French: Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti; Haitian Creole: Misyon Nasyon Zini pou Estabilizasyon an Ayiti), also known as MINUSTAH, an acronym of its French name, was a UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti from 2004 to 2017. It was composed of 2,366 military personnel and 2,533 police, supported by international civilian personnel, a local civilian staff, and United Nations Volunteers. The mission's military component was led by the Brazilian Army and commanded by a Brazilian.

The devastating January 2010 Haiti earthquake destroyed MINUSTAH's headquarters in Port-au-Prince and killed its chief, Hédi Annabi of Tunisia, his deputy Luiz Carlos da Costa of Brazil, and the acting police commissioner, RCMP Supt. Doug Coates of Canada. The mission subsequently concentrated on assisting the Haitian National Police in providing security, while American and Canadian military forces distributed and facilitated humanitarian aid. Due to fears of instability following the earthquake, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1944 extended MINUSTAH's mandate, and it was periodically renewed until 2017.

The Brazilian Expeditionary Force (Portuguese: Força Expedicionária Brasileira, FEB), nicknamed Cobras Fumantes (literally "the Smoking Snakes"), was a military division of the Brazilian Army and Air Force that fought as part of Allied forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War II. It numbered around 25,900 men, including a full infantry division, liaison flight, and fighter squadron.

Placed under United States command, Brazilian troops fought primarily in the Italian campaign from September 1944 to May 1945, while the Brazilian Navy and Air Force took part in the Battle of the Atlantic from mid-1942 until the end of the war. The FEB operated mostly at the platoon level, seeing heavy combat at the arduous Gothic Line and during the 1945 final offensive. By the end of the war, it took 20,573 Axis prisoners, including two generals and close to 900 officers. The division lost 948 men killed in action across all three services.

During and after the 2022 Brazilian general election, a network of members of former president Jair Bolsonaro's government and of the Brazilian Armed Forces planned to subvert the transition of power to newly elected president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, arrest Supreme Federal Court (STF) justice Alexandre de Moraes and Rodrigo Pacheco (the president of the Federal Senate), and shut down several government institutions, such as the National Congress, the Superior Electoral Court and the STF, in an attempt to keep Bolsonaro in power and consolidate his control over the federal government. The plans, evidence, and individuals involved in planning a coup d'état were gradually revealed in investigations conducted by public agencies and the press in 2023 and 2024.

After the 8 January Brasília attacks, more than 1,400 people were charged for their alleged role in the riots. Valdemar Costa Neto, head of the Liberal Party, and three aides to Bolsonaro were arrested on 8 February 2024. On 21 November 2024, the Federal Police formally accused Bolsonaro and 36 people of an attempt to overthrow Brazil's democratic institutions, including a plot to assassinate Lula, Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Moraes. On 14 December 2024, Bolsonaro's 2022 running mate and former Chief of Staff, Walter Braga Netto, was arrested. Braga Netto, who was also a former general in the Brazilian Army, was considered a prominent figure in the coup plot. On 18 February 2025, Attorney General Paulo Gonet formally indicted Bolsonaro and 34 others for an attempted coup d'état. On 26 March, the Supreme Court accepted the Attorney General's complaint and considered Bolsonaro and seven other allies as defendants in the case.

The Military Academy of Agulhas Negras (Portuguese: Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras, AMAN) is a service academy for training of officer cadets of the Brazilian Army. It originated in 1792 with the creation of the Royal Academy of Artillery, Fortification and Drawing, the first military school of the Americas. It is located in Resende, in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

It is the only institution that trains career officers in the Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, Engineering and Communications branches, as well as the Ordnance Corps and the Army Quartermaster Corps.