Short answers, pulled from the story.
The European Parliament was first directly elected in 1979, with members previously having been appointed by national parliaments. The first session of the newly elected Parliament was held on the 17th of July 1979, when Simone Veil was chosen as president.
The European Parliament has 720 members (MEPs) following the June 2024 elections, up from 705 in the previous parliament. Seats are allocated to member states according to population, with a maximum of 96 and a minimum of 6 seats per state.
The European Parliament's official seat is in Strasbourg, France, where twelve plenary sessions per year are held. Committee meetings take place primarily in Brussels, and the Parliament's secretariat is based in Luxembourg City.
Qatargate is a corruption scandal involving allegations that European Parliament officials were paid to improve the image of Qatar, Morocco, and Mauritania within the EU. Law enforcement authorities seized €1.5 million in cash and charged several individuals including Eva Kaili, Antonio Panzeri, Francesco Giorgi, and Luca Visentini. In response, Parliament revised its rules of conduct in September 2023, tightening disclosure requirements for MEPs.
The Santer Commission resigned en masse in 1999, the first forced resignation in EU history, after the European Parliament threatened a vote of censure over allegations of fraud and mismanagement. Parliament had refused to approve the Community budget, triggering a political crisis that ended when the entire Commission stepped down before a formal censure vote was held.
The European Parliament operates in all 24 official languages of the European Union, making it the most multilingual parliament in the world. It employs 350 full-time interpreters and up to 400 freelancers, and interpretation services across 21 languages cost €118,000 per day according to a 2006 report by Alexander Stubb.