5 Reais Arrival of Royal Family

Brazil's royal family arrived in Rio de Janeiro in March 1808 after fleeing Napoleon's invasion of Portugal — the only instance in history of a reigning European monarch governing from the Americas. The relocation of the Portuguese court transformed Rio almost overnight: the colonial port city acquired a royal library, a medical school, a military academy, and its first printing press, all within months of João VI's arrival. The Banco do Brasil itself was founded that same year, partly to manage the financial chaos of transporting an entire royal bureaucracy across the Atlantic.