Short answers, pulled from the story.
Donetsk was founded in 1869 by Welsh businessman John Hughes, who built a steel plant and several coal mines at a settlement called Aleksandrovka. The town was named Yuzovka after him, since "Yuz" was a Russian approximation of the name Hughes. Workers from Wales, especially from Merthyr Tydfil, settled there in the city's early years.
Donetsk has carried five official names: Aleksandrovka (the original settlement), Yuzovka (from 1869, after founder John Hughes), Stalin (from 1924), Stalino (from 1929-31), and finally Donetsk (from November 1961). Some sources also record a brief period in late 1923 when it was called Trotsk.
German and Italian forces occupied Donetsk, then called Stalino, from the 16th of October 1941 to the 5th of September 1943 as part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The occupation nearly destroyed the city; the population fell from 507,000 before the war to 175,000 after it. The Nazis operated multiple prisoner-of-war camps within the city, including Stalag 386, Stalag 387, and Stalag 397.
Serhii Bubka set the world indoor pole vault record of 6.15 meters at the Donetsk Olympic Stadium on the 21st of February 1993, at the annual Pole Vault Stars event he had founded in 1992. That record stood unbroken until 2014. Bubka set the world indoor record at the same Donetsk event three times, in 1990, 1991, and 1993.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree annexing Donetsk and three other Ukrainian districts on the 30th of September 2022. The United Nations member states overwhelmingly rejected the annexation as a breach of international law. Only Syria, North Korea, and Russia itself recognized the areas as Russian territory.
According to the 2001 census, Russians made up 48.15 percent of Donetsk's population at 493,392 people, while Ukrainians constituted 46.65 percent at 478,041 people. Russian was the native language of 87.8 percent of residents; Ukrainian was the native language of 11.1 percent. Smaller communities included Belarusians, Pontic Greeks, Jews, Tatars, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and Georgians.