Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Caribbean takes its name from the Caribs, an Amerindian ethnic group historically present in the Lesser Antilles and parts of adjacent South America. Spanish colonists named the region after them at the time of the European conquest of the Americas.
The Caribbean region is generally organized into 33 political entities, including 13 sovereign states, 12 dependencies, 7 overseas territories, and various disputed territories. The total regional population is estimated at about 44.6 million.
Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean on the island of Hispaniola in 1492. Portuguese and Spanish explorers soon began claiming territories across Central and South America, and colonial rivalries made the region a battleground for European wars for centuries.
Three major Amerindian peoples lived on the islands at the time of European contact: the Taino in the Greater Antilles, The Bahamas, and the Leeward Islands; the Island Caribs and Galibi in the Windward Islands; and the Ciboney in western Cuba. The population is estimated to have been about 750,000 before contact.
Spanish is spoken by about 64% of the Caribbean, French by about 25%, and English by about 14%, with Dutch, Haitian Creole, and Papiamento also among the official languages. Almost every Caribbean country has a distinct creole language or dialect that serves as its vernacular.
Most British holdings in the Caribbean achieved political independence between the 1960s and 1980s, starting with Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago in 1962. They were followed by Guyana and Barbados in 1966 and others through to St. Kitts and Nevis in 1983.
Caribbean tourism is now a $50 billion industry. It began developing in the early 20th century and grew rapidly in the 1960s, when regular international flights made vacations affordable as the region's export industries declined.