Short answers, pulled from the story.
Memphis was founded on the 22nd of May 1819, by John Overton, James Winchester, and Andrew Jackson. It was formally incorporated on the 19th of December 1826. The founders named the city after the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River.
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on the 4th of April 1968, the day after delivering his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech at Mason Temple. James Earl Ray was identified as his assassin. The Lorraine Motel is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum, a Smithsonian affiliate.
The 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis was spread by river passengers traveling on ships along the waterways. The city had no waterworks or sewage system and relied on river water and rain cisterns, leaving it with no sanitary infrastructure to contain the disease. More than 5,000 deaths were recorded between July 26 and the 27th of November 1878, and the epidemic bankrupted the city and led to the temporary revocation of its charter.
Sun Studio, opened by Sam Phillips in 1950, is where Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison all made their first recordings and were discovered by Phillips. W. C. Handy, known as the Father of the Blues, also recorded there. Sun Studio still stands and is open for tours.
Memphis International Airport is the world's busiest cargo airport, surpassing Hong Kong International Airport in 2021, and serves as the global air hub for FedEx, the city's largest employer. The Port of Memphis is the fifth-busiest inland water port in the United States. The city sits at the intersection of Interstate 40 and Interstate 55 and is served by five major freight railroads.
In early May 1866, white mobs made up primarily of police officers, firemen, and ethnic Irish Americans attacked Black neighborhoods in Memphis over three days. Forty-six Black residents were killed, 75 were wounded, and 100 were injured; nearly 100 houses were destroyed along with churches and schools in South Memphis. The riots, along with a similar outbreak in New Orleans, prompted Congress to pass the Reconstruction Act and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.