Carnaval History

I think someone else already posted a blurb about Carnaval, but because of all the festivities going on here I wanted to know a little bit about Carnaval in Brazil and in Latin America. These websites tell a lot about the history, and there's quite a few amazing pictures to look at:

Here are some pictures:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~sergiok/brasil/carnaval.html

Here's stuff about the history:
http://www.ipanema.com/carnival/home.htm
and
http://www.brazilcarnival.com/