Short answers, pulled from the story.
Beirut has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years. Its name is first attested in the 14th century BC in three Akkadian cuneiform tablets, the Amarna letters, in which King Ammunira of Biruta wrote to Amenhotep III or Amenhotep IV of Egypt.
The name Beirut derives from the Phoenician word bīʾrōt, later bēʾrūt, meaning "wells", a reference to the site's accessible water table. The Arabic name Bayrūt is a transcription of that Phoenician root, and the French form Beyrouth was used during the French mandate period.
The law school of Berytus was recognised by Emperor Justinian in AD 533 as one of only three official law schools of the Roman Empire. Two of Rome's most famous jurists, Papinian and Ulpian, taught there under the Severan emperors, and a large portion of Justinian's Pandects, compiled in the 6th century, was drawn from their work. The school ended after an earthquake in 551 killed an estimated 30,000 people in the city and forced the students to transfer to Sidon.
The explosion on the 4th of August 2020 is believed to have been caused by government-confiscated ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut. At least 203 people were killed and more than 6,500 were wounded; as many as 300,000 people were left homeless. Foreigners from at least 22 countries were among the casualties.
The Cedar Revolution was a mass opposition rally held in Beirut approximately one month after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri near the Saint George Hotel in 2005. It was the largest rally in Lebanon's history at that time, drawing roughly one million people. The last Syrian troops withdrew from Beirut on the 26th of April 2005 in its aftermath.
Solidere is a development company established in 1994 to reconstruct the Beirut Central District after the civil war. Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was its majority stakeholder, raising conflict-of-interest concerns in a public-private partnership. Critics have noted that expropriations were made at undervalued land rates, that the project destroyed buildings described as "the last Ottoman and medieval remains in Beirut", and that Solidere acts as a de facto municipality over the privatised district.