Short answers, pulled from the story.
Abraham Zacuto entered the world on the 12th of August 1452 within the stone walls of Salamanca, Castile. He studied astronomy at the University of Salamanca before teaching there to a new generation of scholars.
The Catholic Monarchs issued the Alhambra Decree in 1492 ordering the expulsion of all Jews from Spain which forced him to flee to Lisbon. He later escaped Portugal during the forced conversions enacted by King Manuel I because these prohibitions targeted both Jews and Muslims under the new monarch's rule.
Ha-hipbur ha-gadol became known as The Great Book and contained data in a simple almanac format that allowed positions of a planet to be easily interpolated between entries. Vasco da Gama made use of Zacuto's tables and the astrolabe on his maiden trip to India in 1497 while pilot João de Lisboa indicated that the use of astrolabe and tables were already perfected and routine by 1514.
Reports suggest he probably died in 1515 in Jerusalem though other accounts place his final home in Damascus. Some records indicate his death occurred in 1520 instead of 1515 and he had announced his wish to make his death pilgrimage at a Passover gathering before his passing.
In 1504 while in Tunisia Abraham Zacuto wrote a history of the Jewish people titled Sefer yuhasin which started with the Creation of the World and went up to the year 1500. A complete uncensored edition was published by Herschell Filipowski in London in 1857 and another edition followed in Brooklyn, New York in 1994 under the title Renaissance Hebraica.