Short answers, pulled from the story.
Men's swimming was part of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens. Women's swimming was added to the Olympics in 1912, and the 10 km open water event became Olympic in 2005, first contested at the 2008 Beijing Games.
Captain Matthew Webb was the first man to swim the English Channel, completing the crossing in 1875 using the breaststroke. He covered 21.26 miles in 21 hours and 45 minutes, and his feat went unmatched for 36 years until T.W. Burgess crossed in 1911.
FINA banned polyurethane suits from the 1st of January 2010 because they made athletes more buoyant and provided an unfair speed advantage. In 2008 alone, 70 world records fell and 66 Olympic records were broken at the Beijing Games, prompting the rule change.
The dolphin kick is an underwater kicking technique used to maximize speed off the start and after turns. David Berkoff first used it prominently at the 1988 Olympics, swimming most of the 100 m backstroke underwater and breaking the world record in the preliminaries.
Tapering is the practice of reducing training load in the days before an important competition, allowing the swimmer's body to rest without stopping exercise completely. It is often paired with shaving exposed skin to reduce drag, a combination known as "shave and taper."
The most common injury is rotator cuff damage in the shoulder, caused by the repeated overhead arm position used in all four strokes. Breaststroke knee, also called swimmer's knee, is another frequent injury caused by the repetitive kicking motion specific to breaststroke.