Short answers, pulled from the story.
Star Wars earned over $100 million in its first three months for 20th Century Fox, and the studio's stock rose from $6 to $25 a share. Fox used the new cash to buy the Aspen ski resort and the Pebble Beach golf courses, still declared excess profits in 1977, and grew into a thriving media conglomerate on income from re-releases, sequels, and merchandising.
Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, a system of lasers and missiles meant to intercept incoming ICBMs, was nicknamed Star Wars by critics and, eventually, by its own supporters. Lucasfilm sued over the trademark use and lost in court.
Star Wars pushed the film industry toward computer-generated imagery and triggered a boom in state-of-the-art special effects, leading to the creation of companies like Industrial Light & Magic and Digital Productions. Alongside Jaws, it established the modern summer blockbuster and proved that merchandising rights could out earn a film itself.
Jediism is a real-life religion based on a modified version of the Jedi Code and belief in the Force as an energy field that surrounds, penetrates, and binds the galaxy together. In England and Wales, 390,127 people, almost 0.8% of the population, listed Jedi as their religion on the 2001 census, making it the fourth largest reported religion in the country.
NASA launched a Space Shuttle in October 2007 carrying an original lightsaber prop, the handle used as Luke Skywalker's weapon in Return of the Jedi, and returned it to George Lucas on the 7th of November 2007. SpaceX's first successfully launched rocket, the Falcon 1, was named by Elon Musk after the Millennium Falcon.
Star Wars references appear in games including The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Soulcalibur IV, Team Fortress 2, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Fallout New Vegas, The Sims 4: Journey to Batuu, Fall Guys, and Goat Simulator 3. Soulcalibur IV made Darth Vader, Yoda, and Starkiller playable characters, while Team Fortress 2 added a lightsaber reskinned as a bat for the Scout in October 2015.