Short answers, pulled from the story.
Wilmington was founded in March 1638 by settlers from the Swedish South Company under the command of Peter Minuit, who arrived on the ships Fogel Grip and Kalmar Nyckel. They purchased the land from the Lenape chief Mattahorn and built Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. The settlement was formally incorporated as the Village of Willingtown in 1731 and received its current name by borough charter in 1739.
More than 50 percent of all publicly traded companies in the United States and over 60 percent of the Fortune 500 are incorporated in Delaware, making Wilmington a central address in American corporate law. Delaware's Court of Chancery decides corporate disputes with a judge rather than a jury, and is recognized for speed and expertise in equity matters. The Financial Center Development Act of 1981 also eliminated interest rate caps, drawing major credit card operations from Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, and Barclays to the city.
Wilmington, Delaware holds this record. Following riots in April 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Governor Charles L. Terry Jr. deployed the National Guard on the 9th of April at the request of Mayor John Babiarz. Despite Babiarz asking for withdrawal the following week, Terry kept the troops in the city until his term ended in January 1969, an occupation of approximately nine months.
By 1868, Wilmington was producing more iron ships than the rest of the United States combined. The city ranked first nationally in gunpowder production and second in carriage and leather manufacturing. The Civil War demand for ships, railroad cars, gunpowder, and shoes drove enormous growth in the city's industries and pushed residential expansion westward along tree-lined streets.
Bob Marley once lived in Wilmington while working to earn enough money to establish his Tuff Gong music studio in Jamaica. The city honors that connection through the Peoples' Festival, an annual summer event started in 1994 that features reggae and world beat performers playing Marley songs and original music on the Wilmington riverfront.
Wilmington had a population of 70,898 at the 2020 census. Black or African American residents make up 56.2 percent of the population, white residents 28.7 percent, and Hispanic or Latino residents of any race 13.3 percent. The most reported ancestries in 2020 were African American at 33.4 percent, followed by Irish at 9.1 percent and German at 6.2 percent.