Top 10 history of South America facts

Argentina. Ernesto Guevara was born in Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of five children in an Argentine family of Spanish, Basque and Irish descent. His father, a staunch supporter of Republicans from the Spanish Civil War, often hosted many veterans from the conflict in the Guevara home.

Rio de Janeiro. Rio was the capital of Brazil from 1763 to 1960, both during the Portuguese colonial era and as an independent nation. With the population of 6.3 million, it is the second largest city in Brazil, after São Paulo (11M).

Portugal. On November 29,1807, Braganza royal family and its court of nearly 15,000 people escaped from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, shortly before Napoleonic forces invaded Lisbon. For thirteen years, Rio de Janeiro functioned as the capital of the Kingdom of Portugal.

Atacama Desert. In the 19th century, there were no clear borders defined between Peru, Bolivia and Chile in the area of the Atacama desert. This became a problem with the discovery of valuable sodium nitrate deposits in the area.

Pedro Álvares Cabral. On 15 February 1500, Cabral was appointed a commander of a fleet sailing for India. The fleet crossed the Equator on 9 April, and sailed westward as far as possible from the African continent in what was known as the Volta do mar (literally "turn of the sea") navigational technique. They landed in a land they took for an unknown island and named Ilha de Vera Cruz (Island of the True Cross), which in fact was Brazil.

Incan. Machu Picchu is the best preserved city of the Inca Empire. It is situated on a mountain ridge 2,430 metres above sea level in the Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, above the Sacred Valley, which is 80 kilometres northwest of Cuzco.

United Kingdom. Islas Malvinas is the name used in Argentina for Falkland Islands. The islands are controlled by the United Kingdom, however Argentina has also claimed the sovereignty over the islands since it gained independence in 1816.

Peru. A Peruvian of Japanese descent, Fujimori was president of Peru from 1990 to 2000. He fled to Japan in 2000 amidst a corruption scandal. On April 2009, Fujimori was convicted of human rights violations against leftist guerrillas, and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Carib people. Many historians believe that cannibalism was rare or even nonexistent among Carib people. In 1503 Queen Isabella ruled that only people who were better off under slavery (especially cannibals) could legally be taken as slaves. This provided Spaniards an incentive for identifying various groups as cannibals to enslave them.

Cuzco. The city is located at the elevation of 3,400 m (11,200 ft). In 2007, it had a population of 358,935. The Spanish conquistadors adopted the local name, transliterating it into Spanish as Cuzco. In 1976, it was changed to Cusco, and in 1990, to Qosqo. However, older spelling (with the most common Cuzco) is also accepted.