A Colônia Luxemburguesa

Jean de Luxembourg (1921-2019) was the Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 1964 to 2004, and first visited Brazil as Crown Prince in 1942 and several times since then.

Carlo Krieger is the Ambassador of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg in Brazil (2018-2022).

Paulo Speller was born and raised in João Monlevade as the eldest son of the Luxembourgish engineer Guillaume Prosper Speller. Today, he is a university professor living in Belo Horizonte.

Sabará is a 300-year-old historical city in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the city attracted several gold diggers who exploited the region's gold mines with slave labour. In 1921, Sabará became the headquarters of ARBED's Brazilian subsidiary, the Companhia Siderúrgica Belgo Mineira.

The Siderúrgica plant is Belgo Mineira's oldest steel plant. In 1921, ARBED expanded the small steel factory of the Companhia Siderúrgica Mineira founded in 1917. Belgo Mineira's headquarters was in Sabará and the historical directors' buildings of the steel plant are being preserved by ArcelorMittal.

Joseph Hein (1902-1983) was born in 1902 in Belvaux and moved to Brazil in 1934. Hein was Belgo Mineira's general director from 1956 to 1974. He died tragically in 1983 while being attacked by bees in his fazenda.

Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco (1897-1967) was the first president of Brazil's Military Dictatorship from 1964 to 1967. Castelo Branco died of a plane accident. The reason of his death has been repeatedly questioned.

Brasilia was founded in 1960 by the mineiro president Juscelino Kubitschek to become the new Brazilian capital. The planned city located in the central-western Brazilian highlands and was conceived by the Brazilian architects Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer.

Pierre Werner (1913-2002) was the Prime Minister of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg from 1958 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1984.

The Church Nossa Senhora da Conceição was built in the early eighteenth century. Inside, its golden ornaments reflect the colonial past of the gold rush.

The city of Rio de Janeiro was founded in 1565 and was the capital of Brazil until 1960, when it was replaced by Brasilia. This iconic city in southeastern Brazil is also the capital of the State of Rio de Janeiro.

Afonso Toledo Bandeira de Melo (1882-1969?) was the former Minister of Labour, Industry and Commerce and board member of Belgo Mineira. Following ARBED's recommendation, the Luxembourg government nominated Bandeira de Melo as the General Honorary Consul of Luxembourg in 1938.

Law of 12 July 1966, regarding the approved convention on social security between the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the United States of Brasil, signed in Rio de Janeiro, 16 Septemeber 1965.

You can read the detailed governmental report of this official visit here: