Short answers, pulled from the story.
Baltimore earned the nickname "the Monumental City" after President John Quincy Adams visited in 1827 and offered a toast: "Baltimore: the Monumental City - May the days of her safety be as prosperous and happy, as the days of her dangers have been trying and triumphant." Baltimore has more public statues and monuments per capita than any other city in the United States.
During the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814, lawyer Francis Scott Key witnessed the battle from a ship and wrote a poem about seeing the fort's flag still flying at dawn. That poem became "The Star-Spangled Banner," designated as the U.S. national anthem in 1931. The Battle Monument, built in response to the battle, became Baltimore's official city emblem.
Baltimore's Inner Harbor was the second-leading port of entry for immigrants to the United States after New York's Ellis Island. Between 1820 and 1989, nearly two million migrants arrived, including Germans, Poles, Irish, Italians, Russians, and Greeks, with the heaviest flow between 1861 and 1930. By 1913, the city was averaging forty thousand immigrants per year.
In the early hours of the 26th of March 2024, a container ship struck the 1.6-mile Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to collapse completely. Six construction workers who were on the bridge fell into the Patapsco River and were found dead by May 7. Replacement was estimated in May 2024 at a cost approaching $2 billion, with a projected fall 2028 completion.
Baltimore had a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census, down from its peak of 949,708 at the 1950 census. The city lost more population in 2020 than any other major U.S. city, though population increased for the first time in decades in 2024. Baltimore is the most populous independent city in the United States.
The Port of Baltimore ranks 9th among all U.S. ports for total dollar value of cargo and 13th for tonnage. In 2014, cargo totaled 29.5 million tons valued at $52.5 billion. The port leads all U.S. ports in handling automobiles, light trucks, farm machinery, and construction machinery, and supports more than 108,000 jobs connected to port activity.