Short answers, pulled from the story.
Lowell earned that name because of its textile mills and factories, which by 1850 formed the largest industrial complex in the United States. In 1860, Lowell contained more cotton spindles than all eleven states that would form the Confederacy combined.
During the Cambodian genocide of 1975-1979, Lowell absorbed a significant wave of refugees fleeing the Khmer Rouge. By 2010, Lowell had the highest proportion of residents of Cambodian origin of any place in the United States, at 12.5% of the population. The Government of Cambodia opened its third U.S. consular office in Lowell on the 27th of April 2009.
Lowell was named after Francis Cabot Lowell, a key figure in the American Industrial Revolution and the visionary leader of the Boston Associates who founded the mill town. He had died five years before the city's 1823 incorporation.
Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund both began their careers in Lowell, and their story became the 2010 film The Fighter. The New England Golden Gloves tournament is held annually in Lowell and has featured Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Marvin Hagler.
CVS/pharmacy was founded in Lowell in 1963. Moxie, considered the first mass-produced soft drink in the United States, originated there. Father John's Medicine was first formulated in a Lowell pharmacy in 1855, and in 1879 Lowell became the first U.S. city to use telephone numbers.
Sokhary Chau was elected mayor of Lowell, Massachusetts in 2022, becoming the first Cambodian-American mayor in the United States.