Rio Carnival 2012 Countdown

The new look of Sambódromo with more seating and better access, where the Rio Carnival will take place start today Saturday, February 18th through Tuesday, February 21st 2012.
Rio de Janeiro Carnival is the Largest of Brazil's Carnival Celebrations.
The purpose of carnival is for samba schools to compete with fellow rival schools; this competition is the climax of the whole carnival festival. Each school chooses a theme to try and portray in their entry. The samba schools work to build the best floats and costumes to represent their themes, and to include the best music they can from their band called the bateria. There are many parts to each school's entry including the six to eight floats and thousands of participants.
In Brazil, Carnival is generally considered to have started in 1723 by settlers from the Portuguese Islands. Then in 1840, masquerade balls started, with street parades becoming part of the festivities about ten years later, leading to samba ingrained with Carnival by 1917.In 1928, the samba schools emerged as part of the Carnival culture and quickly began to shape the parading on the streets of Rio. As the popularity and competition between schools increased, the Sambódromo was eventually built in 1984 to house event, which continues to grow exponentially in splendor and extravagance.
As Special Quest to Unidos da Tijuca samba school, will realy hope to win this Year.