Short answers, pulled from the story.
Vancouver was incorporated as a city on the 6th of April 1886. It was named Vancouver through a deal with the Canadian Pacific Railway, which selected the site as the western terminus of its transcontinental line. The Great Vancouver Fire destroyed the entire city on the 13th of June 1886, just weeks after incorporation.
Gassy Jack was the proprietor who built a makeshift tavern on the western edge of the Hastings Mill property on the 1st of July 1867. The settlement that grew around his tavern was called Gastown and is recognised as the origin of modern Vancouver. The Gastown steam clock still marks the original site.
The 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city of Vancouver. The city is among the most ethnically and linguistically diverse in Canada: 42.2 percent of residents were born outside Canada, 54.5 percent belong to visible minority groups, and Cantonese is the mother tongue of 11.8 percent of the population.
Vancouver is called Hollywood North because it is the third-largest film and television production centre in North America, behind Los Angeles and New York City. In 2021, $3.6 billion was spent on film production in Vancouver, supporting around 20,000 jobs. The city hosts approximately 65 movies and 55 television series annually.
Vancouver is one of the most expensive housing markets in the world. Forbes ranked it the fourth-most expensive real estate market globally in 2019. As of April 2010, the average two-level home sold for $987,500, compared with a Canadian average of $365,141. Demographia ranked it the second-most unaffordable city in the world in 2012.
Vancouver has hosted the 1954 Commonwealth Games, the 1986 World Exposition, APEC Canada 1997, the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics (shared with Whistler), and several matches of the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup including the final at BC Place. The 1986 World Exposition drew over 20 million visitors and added $3.7 billion to the Canadian economy.