Short answers, pulled from the story.
The town of Kansas was officially incorporated on the 1st of June 1850 at the meeting point of the Missouri and Kansas rivers. This specific date marks the official birth of what would become a major American city.
Early settlers like Gabriel Prudhomme Sr. established homes and ferry services on the riverfront in the early 1830s while John McCoy founded West Port along the Santa Fe Trail just south of the river in 1833. By 1839 fourteen investors purchased Prudhomme's land at auction to develop the area further.
The name Kansas City was assigned in 1889 to distinguish the growing municipality from the newly created Kansas Territory. This distinction resolved years of confusion between the city and its surrounding territory.
A structural failure occurred inside the 45-story Hyatt Regency hotel located in Crown Center on the 17th of July 1981 killing 114 people and injuring more than 200 others during a tea dance event. It remains the deadliest structural collapse in US history aside from the September 11 attacks.
UNESCO designated Kansas City its first and only City of Music in the United States in 2018. This recognition acknowledged the city's investment in improving the 18th and Vine Jazz District budget allocated in 2016.