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| 1950, Oct. 3 |
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| Calling for accelerated industrialization and strengthened social welfare legislation, GETÚLIO VARGAS WAS REELECTED PRESIDENT. His nationalist-populist program and rhetoric garnered wide support among discontented industrialists, workers, and urban middle-class groups. | 1 |
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| 1953 |
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| Three hundred thousand workers struck in São Paulo, Latin America's leading industrial center, for increased wages and benefits. | 2 |
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| June |
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| In the aftermath of the strike, Vargas appointed JOÃO GOULART as minister of labor. Sympathetic to labor's demands, Goulart moved to double the minimum wage. | 3 |
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| Oct |
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| After two years of pressure by Vargas and popular groups, Congress passed a law creating Petrobrás, a mixed public-private company giving the state a monopoly over new oil refineries and drilling. | 4 |
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