Short answers, pulled from the story.
The African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided over tens of millions of years to create the Alps. This extreme shortening caused marine sedimentary rocks to rise by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks.
Ötzi the mummified man was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian, Italian border in 1991. He has been determined to be 5,000 years old and killed there about 5300 years ago.
Horace-Bénédict de Saussure joined the third ascent of Mont Blanc in 1787 after leaving his law career to become a naturalist studying glaciers and geology in the Bernese Oberland.
Mont Blanc spans the French-Italian border at 4,807 meters as the highest point in the range. The Matterhorn shows evidence of great folding with its tip consisting of gneisses from the African plate.
Thirty thousand species of wildlife inhabit the Alps ranging from tiny snow fleas to brown bears adapted to harsh cold conditions. Alpine ibex live as high as 4,000 meters descending to eat succulent alpine grasses found in caves.