Short answers, pulled from the story.
Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic coast of northern Poland and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. With a population of 486,492 it is Poland's sixth-largest city and its major seaport, sitting at the mouth of the Motława River at the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay.
Gdańsk was long known by its German name, Danzig, especially under Teutonic, Prussian, and German rule. The name most likely came from Gdania, a river now called the Motława, and Polish documents consistently used the form Gdańsk while German records drifted through variants until settling on Danzig.
Gdańsk, then the Free City of Danzig, was the site of some of the earliest combat of World War II. At 04:45 on the 1st of September 1939 the Battle of Westerplatte began with the war's first shots on a Polish military depot, while defenders held the Polish post office for several hours.
In August 1980 the Gdańsk Shipyard was the birthplace of the Solidarity trade union and political movement. Solidarity's opposition to the communist regime led to the end of communist rule in 1989 and sparked protests that overthrew communist governments across the former Eastern Bloc.
Paweł Adamowicz was the Mayor of Gdańsk who was assassinated in January 2019 by a man recently released from prison for violent crimes. After being stabbed in the abdomen near the heart, he underwent a multi-hour surgery but died the next day.
Gdańsk's notable historical landmarks include the Town Hall, the Green Gate, Artus Court, Neptune's Fountain, and St. Mary's Church, one of the largest brick churches in the world. Its reconstructed Hanseatic core runs along Ulica Długa and Długi Targ, a pedestrian thoroughfare once called the Royal Route.