Juscelino Kubitschek

Born in Diamantina in 1902, Kubitschek trained as a urologist in Paris before sliding into politics - federal deputy, then mayor of Belo Horizonte in 1940, then governor of Minas Gerais in 1950, where he pushed roads and power grids. In 1955 he won the presidency with just over a third of the vote, surviving an attempt to annul the result only after a general staged a preemptive military movement to secure his inauguration. As president from 1956 to 1961, he delivered on his "50 years in 5" slogan by relocating the capital to Brasília, a modernist city conjured from the interior plateau, but the sprint left Brazil with soaring debt, inflation, and inequality. Elected senator in 1961, he eyed a presidential return until the 1964 coup stripped his rights and accused him of corruption and communist ties. He spent the next decade drifting through voluntary exile in the US and Europe, and died in a car accident in 1976 before politics could pull him back.