Brazil has the biggest black population of any country outside Nigeria. Over 10 million African slaves were shipped to Brazil, six times more than to the United States. Slaves were prohibited from practising their own faiths. To avoid persecution they gave Catholic names and figures to all their African gods, giving birth to the Afro-Brazilian religion of candomblé.

Brazilian gaúchos have more in common with Argentinians and Uruguayans than they do with people from São Paulo or Rio. When their neighbours became independent, the gaúchos sought freedom from the rest of Brazil, but were defeated in 1845. Nowadays, most Brazilians from the south are descendants of the European immigrants who settled in the late 19th century.

Documentary telling the story of legendary Brazilian footballers Pele and Garrincha, whose emergence following Brazil's defeat at home in the 1950 World Cup Final heralded the dawn of a golden age of football for the country.

Unreported World travels to the heart of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest to reveal just how some of the Earth's most isolated people are being affected by the world's financial crisis causing the price of gold to rise to record levels

Reporter Evan Williams and director Paul Kittel travel to the Brazilian city of Recife, a beach paradise visited by thousands of British tourists every year. They uncover allegations that the police are involved in death squads that have murdered thousands of 'undesirables', including hundreds of street children, every year. The Unreported World team is immediately confronted by the murder of an 18-year-old boy on the side of a street. Police officers say it was an execution, a close-range shot to the head, typical of many of the city's nearly 3000 murders a year.

As the Brazilian army help the police take on drugs gangs in Rio de Janeiro, Ade Adepitan joins a team of young journalists reporting from inside one of the city's most violent favelas