Bissau is the capital city of Guinea-Bissau. The city's borders are conterminous with the Bissau Autonomous Sector. In 2007, the city had an estimated population of 407,424 according to the Instituto Nacional de Estatística e Censos. The city which is located on the Geba River estuary, off the Atlantic Ocean, is the country's largest city, major port, administrative and military centre.

The city was founded in 1687 by Portugal as a fortified port and trading center. In 1942 it became the capital of Portuguese Guinea. After the declaration of independence by the anti-colonial guerrillas of PAIGC, in 1973, the capital of the de facto independent territories was declared to be Madina do Boe, but Bissau remained as the capital of the Portuguese-occupied regions, and the de jure capital of the entire Portuguese Guinea. When Portugal recognized the independence of Guinea-Bissau and pulled out in 1974 due to the military coup of April 25 in Lisbon, the two territories merged and Bissau became the capital of the new independent state. The city is known for its annual carnival.

Flora Gomes is a Bissau-Guinean film director. He was born in Cadique, Guinea-Bissau on 31 December, 1949 and after high school in Cuba, he decided to study film at the Cuban Film Institute in Havana.

Shot fourteen years after independence, Gomes' Mortu Nega (Death Denied) (1988) was the first fiction film and the second feature film ever made in Guinea-Bissau. (The first feature film was N’tturudu, by director Umban u’Kest in 1987.) At FESPACO 1989, the film won the prestigious Oumarou Ganda Prize. Mortu Nega is in Creole language with English subtitles.

In 1992, Gomes directed Udju Azul di Yonta, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.

Son of illiterate parents, as a child Gomes struggled against the limitations of his social status and the oppression of the Portuguese colonial system under Salazar's rule. He supported Bissau-Guinean resistance against colonialism and greatly admired Amílcar Cabral. He left Guinea-Bissau to study cinema in Cuba (1972) at the Cuban Institute of Art and Cinematography, under the guidance of Santiago Álvarez. He continued his studies in Senegal, at the Senegalese Journal for Motion Picture News, under the direction of Paulin Soumanou Vieyra. He also co-directed two films with Sergio Pina and worked as an assistant with Chris Marker and Anita Fernandez.

Tim Maia (Portuguese pronunciation: [tʃĩ majɐ]; September 28, 1942 – March 15, 1998), born Sebastião Rodrigues Maia in Rio de Janeiro, was a famous Brazilian musician known for his iconoclastic, ironic, outspoken, and polemical (but always humorous) musical style. He was also known for his habit of lightheartedly missing appointments and even important gigs.

Maia performed in a variety of musical genres, ranging from happy and energetic dance music to sentimental songs such as his hit "Me Dê Motivo". He performed soul music, funk, bossa nova (in the 1990s), romantic songs, American pop, samba, baião, and Música Popular Brasileira. He frequently recorded albums and made tours alongside Banda Vitória Régia.

Maia wrote his earliest songs at age eight. At 14, as a drummer, he formed the group Os Tijucanos do Ritmo, which lasted one year. He then took guitar classes and was soon teaching children in the neighborhood of Tijuca, in Rio de Janeiro, including the Matoso gang (Maia, Jorge Ben, Erasmo Esteves, later Erasmo Carlos, and several others), named after the street where they used to hang out.

António Sebastião Ribeiro de Spínola, GCTE, ComA (generally referred to as António de Spínola, though this particular surname never had a particle) (Santo André, Estremoz, April 11, 1910 – Lisbon, August 13, 1996) was a Portuguese soldier, conservative politician and author, who was important in the transition to democracy following the Portuguese Carnation Revolution.

He was a son of António Sebastião Spínola and first wife Maria Gabriela Alves Ribeiro, both natives of Madeira.

Spínola entered the Colégio Militar in 1920, beginning what would be a very successful military career. By 1928, Spínola was at Portugal's Military Academy, where he stood out as a young and promising cavalry officer.

In Anjos, Lisbon, by August 1932, he married Maria Helena Martin Monteiro de Barros (14 January 1913 - 23 May 2002), daughter of João de Azevedo Monteiro de Barros and his German wife Gertrud Elisabete Martin.

In 1939, he became adjunct-de-camp of the Guarda Nacional Republicana (English: Republican National Guard). In 1941 he travelled to the German-Russian Front, as an observer, to monitor Wehrmacht movements during the encirclement of Leningrad (the Portuguese volunteers had been incorporated into the Blue Division).