Short answers, pulled from the story.
Alchemy began in the Nile valley where ancient Egyptians called their land the Black Land. The word alchemy derives from the Arabic term for the Egyptian science, which traces back to the Coptic word for Egypt and the ancient Egyptian word for black.
Hermes Trismegistus is a figure derived from the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek god Hermes who is the central figure in alchemical mythology. The Emerald Tablet is a foundational document for alchemical instructions that was preserved in four Arabic recensions between the eighth and tenth centuries AD.
The introduction of alchemy to Latin Europe may be dated to the 11th of February 1144 with the completion of Robert of Chester's translation of the Book on the Composition of Alchemy. Gerard of Cremona and Adelard of Bath also contributed to the flourishing translation of Arabic texts in twelfth-century Toledo, Spain.
Mary the Jewess is the first alchemist whose name is known and she devised improvements to alchemical equipment and tools including the laboratory water-bath known as the bain-marie. She also developed the tribikos and the kerotakis which are modified distillation apparatuses used for sublimations.
Carl Gustav Jung interpreted alchemy as a symbolic process of coming into wholeness where the transmutation of metals represents the transmutation of the soul. The Great Work of Alchemy is described as a series of four stages represented by colours: nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, and rubedo.