Brazilian History Featured Prominently in Olympic Opening Ceremony

The 2016 Olympic Summer Games are underway in Rio de Janeiro in a festive opening ceremony filled with the traditions of the host country.

The Olympic torch will end is 95-day worldwide journey tonight to light the cauldron in front of an estimated crowd of 70,000 at Maracana Stadium. Workers were seen on video using bolt cutters to open the gates because the keys to the locks were reportedly lost.

The event opened with several projected images of water and moved into significant events in Brazilian history, including a presentation of the "beginning of life," the "birth of the forest" and a tribute to the indigenous people who occupied Brazil in the past and present, according to the BBC. Acrobats then mimicked the movement of ships to symbolize when Europeans arrived to the continent in the 1500s.

The opening ceremony features three key themes: reinvent, rejoice and replant.

Eighteen-time gold medalist Michael Phelps will lead Team USA's 555 athletes and bear the flag during roll call, which will be in alphabetical order. A request was put into the International Olympic Committee for Team USA to enter under the name "United States," which would have fallen in the middle of the lineup, but it was denied. The Americans will instead enter under the Portuguese language of Brazil's translation, "Estados Unidos," which is number 69 out of 207 countries.

The opening ceremony in London in 2012, which featured appearances from Queen Elizabeth II herself and Daniel Craig in character as James Bond, has set the bar high for the events in Rio. But, the budget for Rio's ceremony was significantly less, BBC reported.

Perhaps the most internationally famous Brazilian, Gisele Bundchen, will come out of retirement to hit the catwalk while bearing her country's flag.