Jair Bolsonaro

His German ancestry came from his father's maternal grandfather, Carl "Carlos" Hintze, born in Hamburg around 1876, who immigrated to Brazil in 1883.

His great-grandfather, Vittorio Bolzonaro (the surname was originally written with a "z"), was born on 12 April 1878.

Vittorio's parents immigrated to Brazil when he was ten, together with his siblings, Giovanna and Tranquillo.

His maternal grandparents were born in Lucca, in Tuscany, and went to live in Brazil in the 1890s.

On 21 January 2022, his mother Olinda Bonturi Bolsonaro died at age 94.

Later he studied at the Army Physical Training School in Rio de Janeiro and served in the 21st Field Artillery Group and the 8th Paratrooper Field Artillery Group, from the Paratrooper Brigade, both in the same city.

His superior officers said he was "aggressive" and had "excessive ambition to get financial and economical gain".

The assessment referred to Bolsonaro's attempt to mine gold in Bahia state; according to him, the activity was only a "hobby and mental hygiene".

Jair Messias Bolsonaro (born 21 March 1955) is a Brazilian politician and retired military officer who served as the 38th president of Brazil from 2019 to 2022.

Bolsonaro was born on 21 March 1955 in Glicério, São Paulo, in southeast Brazil, to Percy Geraldo Bolsonaro and Olinda Bonturi.

His family is mostly of Italian descent, with German ancestry as well.

On his father's side, he is the great-grandson of Italians from Veneto and Calabria.

Bolsonaro's paternal grandfather's family comes from Veneto, more precisely Anguillara Veneta, in the province of Padua.

Bolsonaro spent most of his childhood moving around São Paulo with his family, living in Ribeira, Jundiaí, and Sete Barras, before settling in Eldorado, in the state's southern region, in 1966, where he grew up with his five brothers.

His first name is a tribute to Jair da Rosa Pinto, a football player for Palmeiras, with whom he shares a birthday.

Bolsonaro began serving in the Brazilian Army in 1973 and graduated from the Agulhas Negras Military Academy in 1977.

In his final years in high school, Bolsonaro was admitted to the Escola Preparatória de Cadetes do Exército (the prep school of the Brazilian Army), which he entered in 1973.

In 1974, he went to the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras (Brazil's main military academy), graduating in 1977 as an artillery officer.

He served in the 9th Field Artillery Group, in Nioaque, Mato Grosso do Sul.

He rose to publicity in 1986 after he wrote an article for Veja magazine criticizing low wages for 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.

Bolsonaro's first rise to publicity came in 1986 when he gave an interview to the news magazine Veja.

He complained about low military salaries and claimed that the High Command was firing officers due to budgetary cuts and not because they were displaying 'deviations of conduct', as the command was telling the press.

In 1987, he studied in the Officers Improvement School, where he made the Artillery Advanced Course.

In 1990, Bolsonaro 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.

He previously served in the Brazil Chamber of Deputies from 1991 to 2018.

His father Percy Geraldo Bolsonaro died in 1995.

Bolsonaro focused on domestic affairs in his first months as president, dealing primarily with the fallout of the 2014 Brazilian economic crisis.

The economy recovered slowly, while crime rates fell sharply during the first year.

He rolled back protections for Indigenous groups in the Amazon rainforest and facilitated its deforestation.

Bolsonaro's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil was criticized across the political spectrum after he sought to downplay the pandemic and its effects, opposed quarantine measures, and dismissed two health ministers, while the death toll increased rapidly.

In the runoff of the 2022 general election, Bolsonaro lost to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

On 8 January 2023, his supporters stormed federal government buildings, calling for a coup d'état.

On 30 June, the Superior Electoral Court blocked Bolsonaro from seeking office until 2030 for attempting to undermine the validity of the election through his unfounded claims of voter fraud, and for abusing his power by using government communication channels to both promote his campaign and to allege fraud.

A polarizing and controversial politician, Bolsonaro's views and comments, which have been described as far-right and populist, drew both praise and criticism in Brazil.

He is a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, abortion, affirmative action, drug liberalization, and secularism.

In foreign policy, he has advocated closer relations with Israel and with the United States, but also, later in his presidency, made efforts to improve relations with the BRICS countries.

Bolsonaro entered the 2018 Brazilian presidential election, during which he started to advocate economically liberal and pro-market policies.

He led in the 7 October first round results and defeated Fernando Haddad in the 28 October runoff.