Short answers, pulled from the story.
Astro Boy was created by Osamu Tezuka and first serialized in Kobunsha's Shonen magazine in 1952. The series ran until 1968 and was collected into 23 tankōbon volumes published by Akita Shoten.
The combined 23 tankōbon volumes of Astro Boy have sold over 100 million copies worldwide, making it Tezuka's best-selling manga and one of the best-selling manga series of all time.
The first Astro Boy anime series premiered on Fuji TV on New Year's Day, 1963. It ran for four seasons and 193 total episodes, with the final episode airing on New Year's Eve 1966.
Tezuka began writing Astro Boy shortly after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Astro's nuclear-powered "100,000 horsepower" reactor reflects postwar Japan's tension between the catastrophic reality of nuclear weapons and the hopeful vision of atomic energy as a peaceful, life-saving force.
Translator Frederik L. Schodt believed it was necessary to retain the original Japanese names because the story is set in Japan. He argued that switching to the American-dubbed name "Atom" would go "too much against the history" of the character for English-speaking readers.
On the 7th of April, 2003, the city of Niiza, Saitama registered Astro Boy as an official resident to coincide with his birthdate in the manga. That same day, JR Takadanobaba Station began using the television series theme music to signal train departures on the JR Yamanote Line.