Short answers, pulled from the story.
The 2008 financial crisis was caused by a combination of the collapse of a U.S. housing bubble, predatory subprime lending, lax regulatory oversight, and the packaging of risky mortgages into securities sold to investors worldwide. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission identified widespread regulatory failures, excessive borrowing, and a systemic breakdown in ethics at all levels as primary causes.
Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on the 15th of September 2008, in what became the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. The filing caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall 504.48 points, or 4.42 percent, its worst single-day decline in seven years at that point.
U.S. household wealth fell $11 trillion from its peak of $61.4 trillion in the second quarter of 2007 to $50.4 trillion by the end of the first quarter of 2009. Some estimates suggest one in four households lost 75 percent or more of their net worth.
TARP was a $700 billion program authorized by Congress on the 3rd of October 2008, through the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, allowing the Treasury Department to purchase toxic assets and bank stocks. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush the same day the House of Representatives passed it.
Forty-seven bankers served jail time globally as a result of the 2008 crisis, with more than half of them from Iceland. In the United States, only one banker served prison time: Kareem Serageldin of Credit Suisse, who received a 30-month sentence and returned $24.6 million in compensation for manipulating bond prices to hide $1 billion in losses.
U.S. unemployment rose from 5 percent in 2007 to a high of 10 percent in October 2009, with approximately 8.7 million jobs lost. The average work week fell to 33 hours, the lowest level recorded since the government began collecting that data in 1964.