That's not the point of this thread though, is it? It asks and answers a very different question. I do not think the history or specs are at all helpful in understanding what makes transistors tick.
"How do tower cranes work?"
"They can carry 20 tons and have a travel of 50 meters and were invented in 1950."
No, it is to first familiarize What is a transistor anyway?.
If I had to teach Complex Analysis, I would start with a calculus refresher. Or if I had to teach Deep learning, I would probably first explain what's a neural network. My recommendation followed a structure. You could even swap out Digikey product description pages for Wikipedia, I couldn't care any less if it just has to introduce what not how. But when it comes to teaching "how the stuff works", anything less than showing biases, polarities & charge flow is a handwave. I am not making arguments for the sake of arguments - if anyone thinks they got it without touching those, they are tricking themselves in.