Short answers, pulled from the story.
The name Crimea is derived from the Turkic word qirim, meaning a trench or a defensive ditch, referencing the Perekop Isthmus. This narrow strip of land has served as the peninsula's only land gate for millennia.
The Crimean War was fought between 1853 and 1856. It was the first modern conflict to be documented by the press and photographed by camera.
In 1944, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin ordered the ethnic cleansing of the Crimean Tatars. Over 180,000 Crimean Tatars were forcibly removed from their homes and shipped to Central Asia.
The Soviet Union transferred Crimea from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. This decision was made on the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Treaty.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 following the political instability in Ukraine after the Euromaidan protests. The protests led to the removal of the Russia-leaning Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.