Short answers, pulled from the story.
The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein fired the first shots of World War II at 04:45 a.m. on the 1st of September 1939. This attack targeted the Polish Military Transit Depot on the Westerplatte peninsula and marked the beginning of the global conflict.
The Teutonic Order seized the city from Brandenburg in 1308. This event led to a massacre where up to 1,000 commoners were killed and resulted in the city's incorporation into the Teutonic state.
King Casimir IV of Poland granted the city the Great Privilege in 1454. This document bestowed full autonomy upon Gdańsk including the right to mint its own currency and enact its own laws.
Lech Wałęsa led the Solidarity trade union movement in Gdańsk during the 1980s. He was a shipyard electrician who later became the President of Poland and played a central role in ending communist rule in 1989.
Gdańsk received 4.5 million tourists in 2024. The city serves as a major tourist destination and is Poland's sixth-largest city with a population of 486,492.