Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ancient Egypt was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in the eastern corner of North Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150 BC when Upper and Lower Egypt were united.
Menes united Upper and Lower Egypt around 3150 BC, according to conventional Egyptian chronology. Most Egyptologists believe Menes was the same person as Narmer, who is depicted on the ceremonial Narmer Palette in a symbolic act of unification.
The Nile's predictable flooding deposited mineral-rich silt that produced surplus crops, supporting a dense population. Egyptians recognized three seasons tied to the river: Akhet for flooding, Peret for planting, and Shemu for harvesting.
The pharaoh was the absolute monarch and supreme military commander, supported by a bureaucracy led by the vizier. The country was divided into as many as 42 administrative regions called nomes, each governed by a nomarch accountable to the vizier.
Ancient Egyptians believed each person was made of a body, a shadow, a ba or soul, a ka or life-force, and a name. After death the heart was weighed against a feather of truth, and if found worthy the deceased lived on as an akh; if not, the heart was eaten by Ammit the Devourer.
By the New Kingdom the best mummification technique took 70 days and involved removing the internal organs, drawing the brain out through the nose, and desiccating the body in a salt mixture called natron. The body was then wrapped in linen with protective amulets and placed in a decorated anthropoid coffin.
The end of ancient Egypt is variously dated to 332 BC during the wars of Alexander the Great, or to 30 BC with the Roman conquest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. In AD 642 the Arab conquest of Egypt brought an end to the region's Greco-Roman period.