Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Wuppertal Schwebebahn is a suspended monorail that has operated since 1901. Its tracks run eight meters above the streets and twelve meters above the River Wupper. It is described as globally unique and was twinned with Japan's Shonan Monorail in 2018.
Wuppertal was founded in 1929 through the merger of Barmen, Elberfeld, Vohwinkel, Ronsdorf, Cronenberg, Langerfeld, and Beyenburg. The name Wuppertal, meaning Wupper Valley, was chosen in a 1930 referendum to replace the original name Barmen-Elberfeld.
Aspirin originates from Wuppertal. Felix Hoffmann synthesized it while working at a Bayer facility in the city, and Bayer patented the compound in 1897. Friedrich Bayer, who founded the company that became Bayer AG, was also born in Wuppertal in 1825.
Friedrich Engels, co-author of The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx, was born in Barmen in 1820, a district that became part of Wuppertal after the 1929 merger. The Engels-Haus in the city holds a permanent display of materials associated with him.
In 1950, a young elephant named Tuffi was brought aboard the Schwebebahn as a promotional stunt for the Althoff Circus. The swinging motion of the monorail upset her, and she plunged forty feet into the River Wupper below. Tuffi sustained only minor injuries and lived until 1989.
Pina Bausch was a choreographer born in 1940 who founded the Tanztheater Wuppertal, described as a world-famous center of modern dance. She died in Wuppertal in 2009. Her work in the city was the subject of the 2011 film Pina, which featured dance sequences filmed in and around Wuppertal.