Short answers, pulled from the story.
More than 2,000 slave ships operating from Bristol carried a conservatively estimated 500,000 people from Africa to slavery in the Americas between 1700 and 1807. In 1755, Bristol had the largest number of slave traders of any city in England, with 237, compared with London's 147.
John Cabot, a Venetian, made landfall in North America in 1497 after departing from Bristol. Two years later, in 1499, William Weston of Bristol led the first expedition to North America commanded by an Englishman.
Bristol derives from the Old English Brycgstow, meaning "assembly place by the bridge" or "site of the bridge", referring to a crossing over the River Avon. The terminal 'L' in the modern spelling is an unetymological addition that first appears in the 12th century, likely a feature of the local Bristol dialect.
On the 7th of June 2020, protesters pulled the statue of Edward Colston from its city centre plinth and pushed it into the harbour. The statue was recovered on the 11th of June and became a museum exhibit; the debate that preceded the toppling lasted more than a decade and centred on the plaque's silence about Colston's role in the slave trade.
Physicist Paul Dirac, from the Bishopston area of Bristol, received the 1933 Nobel Prize for his contributions to quantum mechanics. Cecil Frank Powell, Melvill Wills Professor of Physics at the University of Bristol, received the 1950 Nobel Prize for his photographic method of studying nuclear processes, among other discoveries.
The Bristol Pound was a community currency that operated between 2012 and 2020, making it the largest circulating community currency in the UK during that period. It was pegged to pound sterling before ceasing operation.