In 1875, Júlio Cesar Ribeiro de Souza, born in Belém, a city located in northern Brazil, started some research in aeronautics because he was impressed with the flight of certain native birds of the Amazon rain forest. he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he published works on air navigation and presented talks on this subject to the Instituto Politécnico, an engineering faculty. he designed a dirigible, which was christened Victória after his wife. after obtaining part of the funding in Brazil, the device was constructed in Paris. attempts to place the device airborne failed both in France and in Brazil.