Short answers, pulled from the story.
Antonín Dvořák was born on the 8th of September 1841 in Nelahozeves, a village near Prague in the Austrian Empire. He died on the 1st of May 1904 in Prague, at the age of 62, from an undiagnosed cause following five weeks of illness.
Dvořák's most famous symphony is Symphony No. 9 in E minor, From the New World, composed in New York between January and May 1893 and premiered by the New York Philharmonic under Anton Seidl. It became one of the most performed symphonies in the world, and Neil Armstrong carried a recording of it to the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.
Brahms served on the jury of the Austrian State Competition and was deeply impressed by Dvořák's submissions in the 1870s. He recommended Dvořák to his own publisher Simrock, who commissioned the Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, which launched Dvořák's international reputation. Brahms also corrected Dvořák's proofs for Simrock while Dvořák was in America and described him as the only contemporary he considered truly worthy.
Dvořák moved to New York in 1892 to serve as director of the National Conservatory of Music of America, offered a salary of $15,000 per year by Conservatory president Jeannette Thurber. During his time there he composed the New World Symphony, the Cello Concerto in B minor, and the String Quartet in F major known as the American. He also met Harry Burleigh and championed the use of African-American and Native American music as a foundation for an American national musical style.
Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, was composed in New York in 1894-95 and premiered in London on the 16th of March 1896. Brahms said of it: "Had I known that one could write a cello concerto like this, I would have written one long ago." It is widely regarded by cellists and critics as one of the greatest concertos ever written for the instrument.
Dvořák drew on a broad range of Slavic folk dance and song forms, including the Czech furiant, skočná, and sousedská; the Slovak odzemek; the Polish mazurka and polonaise; the Yugoslav kolo; and the Ukrainian dumka. He did not quote actual folk melodies but invented original themes using the rhythms and styles of those traditions.