Short answers, pulled from the story.
The European Parliament first met on the 10th of September 1952 as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community. It began with just 78 appointed parliamentarians drawn from national parliaments holding no legislative power.
Elections take place directly in every member state every five years since 1979 there have been ten elections. The most recent Union-wide elections to the European Parliament were the European elections of 2019 held from 23 to the 26th of May 2019.
The current President of the European Parliament is Roberta Metsola who was elected in January 2022. The President is essentially the speaker of the Parliament and presides over the plenary when it is in session.
In 2022 four people were arrested because of corruption which came to be known as the Qatar corruption scandal at the European Parliament. Law enforcement authorities seized €1.5 million in cash and charged individuals including Eva Kaili Antonio Panzeri Francesco Giorgi and Luca Visentini.
Since 1979 the European Parliament has been directly elected every five years by the citizens of the European Union through universal suffrage. Voter turnout in parliamentary elections decreased each time after 1979 until 2019 when voter turnout increased by eight percentage points and rose above 50% for the first time since 1994.