Short answers, pulled from the story.
In Chinese, kung fu refers to any skill acquired through learning or practice, not specifically to fighting. The word combines the character gōng, meaning work or achievement, with fū, a suffix indicating someone who has attained discipline through effort. It was borrowed from Cantonese into English and applied specifically to Chinese martial arts.
The first Shaolin Temple was constructed in 495 AD on Song Mountain in Henan province. The oldest documented evidence of Shaolin's combat involvement is a stele dated to 728 AD, recording the monastery's defense against bandits around 610 AD and its role in the defeat of Wang Shichong at the Battle of Hulao in 621 AD. For most of its history, Shaolin martial arts centered on weapons, particularly the staff, rather than bare-hand fighting.
Internal styles focus on the manipulation of qi, or internal energy, while external styles concentrate on building muscle and cardiovascular fitness. In practice, most Chinese martial arts styles contain both hard and soft elements, and experienced practitioners often note that the internal-external distinction has become blurred over centuries of cross-influence.
After the founding of the People's Republic on the 1st of October 1949, the government promoted a standardized sport called wushu as a replacement for traditional family-lineage martial arts schools. The All-China Wushu Association was established in 1958 to regulate training, and during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, practice of traditional martial arts was actively discouraged. The Chinese National Research Institute of Wushu was established in 1986 as the central administrative authority.
Bruce Lee, born in 1940 and died in 1973, was the primary figure who popularized Chinese martial arts in the West during the 1970s. He trained in Wing Chun under Ip Man and later developed his own philosophy called Jeet Kune Do. His films sparked the first major wave of Western interest in Chinese martial arts.
Around 1973, kung fu films became widely popular in America, with Black youth in New York City maintaining particular enthusiasm for the genre. The pioneers of breakdancing, or b-boying, explicitly credited kung fu as one of its influences. Specific moves including the crouching low leg sweep and up rocking derived from choreographed kung fu fights, and Crazy Legs of Rock Steady Crew compared the breakdancing battle format directly to the challenge structure of kung fu films.