Which South American city is named “River of January”.

The name of this iconic Brazilian metropolis is the result of a geographical mistake made by its first European explorers. On January 1, 1502, a Portuguese expedition commanded by Gaspar de Lemos sailed into a vast and beautiful bay, which they naturally assumed was the mouth of a great river. In honor of the date of their discovery, they named the location after the month, combining the Portuguese words for "river" (rio) and "January" (janeiro).

Of course, the massive body of water they had found was not a river but the expansive Guanabara Bay. The city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro was officially founded on the bay's shores more than sixty years later, but the memorable, if inaccurate, name for the region stuck. The city grew to become one of the most important in the Americas, even serving as the capital of Brazil for nearly two centuries before the title was transferred to Brasília in 1960. Today, landmarks like Sugarloaf Mountain overlook the very same waters that inspired the city's famous name.