Short answers, pulled from the story.
Spokane is known as the birthplace of Father's Day, the host city of Spokane Hoopfest (the world's largest 3-on-3 basketball tournament), and by its nickname the Lilac City. It is the economic and cultural center of the Inland Northwest and the second-most populous city in Washington state, with a population of 228,989 at the 2020 census.
The name Spokane comes from the Salishan language of the Spokane tribe and means "children of the sun" or "sun people." The tribe is believed to be descended from hunter-gatherers who lived in the area as far back as 8,000 to 13,000 years ago.
Spokane was officially incorporated on the 29th of November 1881, under the name Spokane Falls, with a population of about 1,000 residents. It was reincorporated under the name Spokane in 1891, following the rebuilding of the downtown after the Great Fire of 1889.
Father's Day originated in Spokane, Washington. Sonora Smart Dodd conceived the idea while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in Spokane's Central Methodist Episcopal Church, and the first observation of Father's Day in Spokane was held on the 19th of June 1910.
Expo '74 was the first environmentally themed World's Fair, held in Spokane beginning on May 4. It made Spokane the smallest city at the time to have hosted a World's Fair. After the fair closed, its grounds became the 100-acre Riverfront Park in downtown Spokane.
The Spokane House was established in 1810 by explorer-geographer David Thompson and his men at the confluence of the Little Spokane and Spokane rivers. It operated until 1826 under the North West Company and later the Hudson's Bay Company, and served as the first enduring European settlement of significance in what became Washington state and the headquarters of the fur trade between the Rocky and Cascade mountains for 16 years.