Short answers, pulled from the story.
São Paulo was founded on the 25th of January 1554 with the Colégio de São Paulo de Piratininga, a Jesuit college of twelve priests that included Manuel da Nóbrega and the Spanish priest José de Anchieta. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on the American continent.
São Paulo is the most populous city in Brazil, South America, the Americas, and both the Western and Southern Hemispheres. By 1960 it had surpassed Rio de Janeiro to take that rank, and it reached its first million inhabitants in 1928 and four million by the early 1960s.
The bandeirantes were intrepid invaders from São Paulo who marched into unknown lands in search of gold, diamonds, precious stones, and Indians to enslave. The word translates as flag-bearers or flag-followers, and in 1640 they forced the expulsion of the Jesuits from the city.
São Paulo has the largest urban economy in Latin America, representing around 10% of Brazilian GDP and just over a third of São Paulo state's GDP. It is the only Brazilian city to surpass the 1 trillion reais mark in GDP and is the headquarters of B3, the largest stock exchange in Latin America.
São Paulo is home to the world's largest Arab, Italian, and Japanese diasporas. Half of its 12 million inhabitants have Italian ancestry, and the metropolitan area includes 6 million people of Portuguese descent, 5 million Italian, 1.7 million African, 1 million Arab, and 665,000 Japanese descent.
Construction of the São Paulo Metro began in 1968 under Mayor José Vicente de Faria Lima, and commercial operation started on the 14th of September 1974. By 2016 the network ran 71.5 km across 64 stations on five lines, carrying 1.1 billion passengers that year.