Short answers, pulled from the story.
Karate originally meant Chinese hand or Tang hand, written with the character for the Tang dynasty. As tensions rose between China and Japan, the name was changed in 1933 to a homophone meaning empty hand to mark the art as Japanese in style. The earliest documented use of the empty hand spelling appeared in Karate Kumite, written in August 1905 by Chomo Hanashiro.
Karate developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom from the indigenous Ryukyuan martial art called te, under the influence of Chinese martial arts. Beginning in the 1300s, early Chinese martial artists brought their techniques to Okinawa, and the blend became known as kara-te, meaning Chinese hand.
Itosu Anko, who lived from 1831 to 1915, is sometimes called the Grandfather of Modern Karate. He created the simplified Pin'an forms for beginners, helped introduce karate into Okinawa's public schools in 1905, and taught masters including Gichin Funakoshi and Kenwa Mabuni.
Gichin Funakoshi introduced karate to Tokyo in 1922, showing pictures at a Physical Education Exhibition and demonstrating at the Kodokan before judo founder Jigoro Kano. Karate gained sudden fame after a magazine with a circulation of about one million reported that Motobu Choki defeated a foreign boxer in a Kyoto match in November 1922.
The International Olympic Committee approved karate as an Olympic sport in August 2016, and it debuted at the 2020 Summer Olympics with sixty competitors in kumite and twenty in kata. It was not included in the 2024 Games but has made the shortlist for possible inclusion in 2028.
Karate training is commonly divided into kihon, the basics such as stances, strikes, and blocks; kata, formalized sequences of movements representing offensive and defensive postures; and kumite, sparring, which literally means meeting of hands. Kumite is practiced both as a sport and as self-defense training.
Estimates differ between two organizations. Web Japan, sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, claims karate has 50 million practitioners worldwide, while the World Karate Federation claims there are 100 million practitioners around the world.