Short answers, pulled from the story.
Portland was named after Portland, Maine, following a coin toss in 1844 between co-owners Asa Lovejoy and Francis Pettygrove, who each wanted to name the settlement after their respective hometowns. Pettygrove won the best-of-three toss, and the coin used that day, now known as the Portland Penny, is on display at the Oregon Historical Society.
Portland was a major shipbuilding center during World War II, with Henry J. Kaiser operating shipyards in Portland and nearby Vancouver, Washington to build Liberty ships and escort carriers. The boom drew more than 150,000 new residents, including a large number of African American workers, and the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation laid the keel of the USS Liberty on the 23rd of February 1945. The city also operated an assembly center from which up to 3,676 people of Japanese descent were sent to internment camps between May and the 10th of September 1942.
The Boring Lava Field is a dormant volcanic field beneath Portland, named after the nearby community of Boring. It contains at least 32 cinder cones, including Mount Tabor, which rises 636 feet within Portland's city limits. Portland is one of only four U.S. cities with extinct volcanoes inside its boundaries.
Portland recorded its all-time high temperature of 116 degrees Fahrenheit on the 28th of June 2021, during a major regional heat wave. The record had been broken on three consecutive days, with highs of 108 on June 26 and 112 on June 27. The previous record of 107 degrees had been set on the 30th of July 1965.
Intel brought more than $10 billion in investments to the Portland area in 1995 alone, helping establish the city as a technology hub now nicknamed Silicon Forest. Between 2001 and 2012, Portland's gross domestic product per person grew by fifty percent, more than any other U.S. city during that period. As of 2024, Intel remained the Portland area's largest employer with more than 23,000 workers.
The Portland Trail Blazers sold out every home game from 1977 to 1995, a streak of 814 consecutive games and the second-longest in American sports history. The Portland Timbers sold out 163 consecutive home games after joining Major League Soccer in 2011. In 2015, Timbers player Diego Valeri scored the fastest goal in MLS Cup history, 27 seconds into the match.