Short answers, pulled from the story.
Land investors Allen Chapman and John Kirby purchased the land on the 30th of August 1836 to establish the town. They named the settlement Houston after General Sam Houston following his victory at the Battle of San Jacinto.
The Texas Congress convened in Houston for the first time by May 1837 when about fifteen hundred people lived there. The Republic of Texas granted official city incorporation on the 5th of June 1837 making James S. Holman its first mayor before moving the government to Austin in 1839.
The 2020 U.S. census determined that Houston had a population of two million three hundred four thousand five hundred eighty residents. This figure includes an estimated six hundred thousand undocumented immigrants residing in the area as of 2017.
Real estate developer Gerald D. Hines built the seventy-five floor JPMorgan Chase Tower which was completed in 1982. This structure remains the tallest building in Texas and the nineteenth tallest in the United States.
Hurricane Harvey stalled over southeastern Texas in late August 2017 causing severe flooding with some areas receiving over fifty inches of rainfall. The damage for the Houston area was estimated at up to one hundred twenty-five billion dollars making it one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.