History of Niteroi

In 1890, the Brazilian provinces began being called states and the neutral municipality (Rio de Janeiro city) had its status changed to Federal District (or simply DF, the Brazilian acronym for Distrito Federal). Following the transference of Brazil's capital to Brasilia DF in 1960, the city of Rio de Janeiro was made into a small, one-municipality state, named Guanabara State. This state was finally absorbed by Rio de Janeiro State in 1975; since then, Niteroi lost its condition of the state's capital in favor of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

A circus fire in the city killed 323 people in 17 December 1961; the fire was later found to have been deliberately set by disgruntled circus employees. It is one of the worst tragedies in Brazilian history and the most fatal in the annals of world circus show history.

On 8 April 2010; the mudslide triggered due to heavy rainfall cost at least 200 lives. At least 11,000 people were forced to flee homes due to further mudslides