Short answers, pulled from the story.
A.D. Vision officially opened for business on the 17th of August 1992. It was founded in Houston, Texas, by John Ledford, Matt Greenfield, and David Williams. Ledford had been running a Japanese video game import business, while Greenfield and Williams had been involved in a local anime club called Anime NASA.
Devil Hunter Yohko was the first title released by A.D. Vision, in December 1992. ADV licensed it from Toho after Shozo Watanabe, the general manager of Toho's Los Angeles office, was persuaded to grant the rights when no other distributor was available.
ADV ceased all operations on the 1st of September 2009, following declining sales in the mid-2000s. The company's assets, including its title library, distribution arm, and the Anime Network, were transferred to four successor companies: Seraphim Studios, AEsir Holdings LLC, Valkyrie Media Partners LLC, and SXION 23 LLC.
ADV's library included Neon Genesis Evangelion, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, RahXephon, Full Metal Panic!, Azumanga Daioh, Elfen Lied, Gantz, Red Garden, and Le Chevalier D'Eon, among many others.
Anime Network was the United States' first all-anime cable television network, launched by ADV in late 2002. It operated as a 24-hour linear channel and a video-on-demand service on providers including DirecTV, Dish Network, and Cox. Its linear service ceased on the 4th of January 2008; its streaming service ran until 2017, when it was replaced by HIDIVE.
Sentai Holdings, through subsidiaries including Sentai Filmworks and Section23 Films, took over the ADV brand name and most of its former licenses. Sentai Holdings was later acquired by AMC Global Media, then known as AMC Networks, in January 2022.