After being discovered by Portuguese explorer of the expedition of 1501, who mistook the mouth of a great river, known as " Rio de Janeiro, the Guanabara Bay became op rincipal access to the city of Rio de Janeiro for centuries. In the eighteenth century with the development of mining, the Port of Rio de Janeiro became the main center for exporting and importing the towns of Minas Gerais, where gold and diamonds came out and came slaves and manufactured goods between other products. From mid-nineteenth century, began to emerge plans port upgrades to meet the ever increasing needs of their trade, and the works were initiated in 1889. Newspapers in 1904 reported the Port of Rio de Janeiro as a dream, the symbol of the rebirth of the city. The works have transformed the river, with the demolition of at least three hills of the Center, the landfill of 1.7 million square feet of Guanabara Bay and the extension of the Mangue Channel. A hundred years from start of construction, the same port that was born as the most important harbor in Latin America became a strangled by giant urban explosion and scrapped the historic lack of investment.
