Short answers, pulled from the story.
Amsterdam's founding is historically estimated to have occurred between 1264 and 1275, when a dam was built at the mouth of the Amstel River. The name derives from Amestelle, meaning 'watery area,' and the settlement first appeared in a written document in 1275 in a toll privilege granted by Count Floris V.
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, now part of Euronext, is considered the world's oldest modern stock exchange. In 1602, the Amsterdam office of the Dutch East India Company became the world's first stock exchange by issuing and trading shares in itself. Due to Brexit, it has overtaken the London Stock Exchange as the largest bourse in Europe.
Around 60,000 Jewish inhabitants were living in Amsterdam at the time of the Nazi occupation beginning in May 1940. More than 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported and murdered in concentration camps, including 56,521 in Auschwitz and 34,082 in Sobibor. Only about twenty percent of Amsterdam's prewar Jewish population survived the Holocaust.
The February Strike was a general protest in which 300,000 people participated, organized in response to the arrest of 427 Amsterdam Jews on the 22nd of February 1941 by Nazi occupation authorities. Led by trade unions and supported by civil servants, the Church, and the Dutch government-in-exile under Queen Wilhelmina, it caught the German authorities completely by surprise.
The Grachtengordel, comprising the three concentric canals of Herengracht, Keizersgracht, and Prinsengracht, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in July 2010. Canal construction on this system began in 1613 and the southern sector was completed by 1656.
Amsterdam is home to residents of about 180 nationalities, making it one of the most multicultural cities in the world. The proportion of the population of immigrant origin in the city proper is about 50 percent, and in 2023, those of Dutch-only ancestry were a minority in 40 percent of Amsterdam's neighborhoods.