About Pedro Gastão of Orléans-Braganza
Pedro Gastão of Orléans-Braganza (19 February 1913 – 27 December 2007) was a Brazilian prince and dynastic claimant who served as head of the Petrópolis branch of the House of Orléans-Braganza. From 1940 until his death, he claimed the symbolic headship of the former Brazilian throne, in opposition to the rival claim of the Vassouras branch led by his cousins Pedro Henrique and later Luiz. Born during the exile of the Brazilian imperial family, Pedro Gastão was the second child and eldest son of Pedro de Alcântara, Prince of Grão-Pará, former heir apparent to the Brazilian throne, and Countess Elisabeth Dobrzensky of Dobrzenicz. He never accepted as valid his father’s 1908 renunciation of dynastic rights, which had been made in order to contract a non-dynastic marriage, and on this basis asserted his own claim to the imperial legacy following his father’s death in 1940. Through his family ties, Pedro Gastão was closely connected to other former European ruling houses. He was the uncle of the pretenders to the thrones of Portugal (Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza) and France (Henri, Count of Paris), and the grandfather of Philip, Hereditary Prince of Yugoslavia, heir apparent to the defunct Yugoslav throne. Still in the mountain town of Petrópolis, in the 1950s, he acquired the newspaper Tribuna de Petrópolis, founded in 1902, and currently managed by his son, Francisco.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.