Short answers, pulled from the story.
Billboard was founded on the 1st of November, 1894, in Cincinnati, Ohio, by William Donaldson and James Hennegan. It began as a trade publication for the bill-posting and advertising industry, initially known as Billboard Advertising.
The Billboard Hot 100 is a weekly chart of the top 100 most popular songs, introduced in 1958. It ranks singles based on sales, streaming, and radio airplay data.
James Albert Jackson was a black journalist hired by William Donaldson in 1920 to write a weekly column devoted to black performers. He was the first black critic at a national magazine with a predominantly white audience, and his column identified discrimination against black performers and helped validate their careers.
Billboard was sold to private investors in 1985 for an estimated $40 million. It was then sold again in 1987 to Affiliated Publications for $100 million, and in 1994 to Dutch conglomerate VNU for $220 million.
Starting in 1904, Billboard tracked traveling entertainers' locations through its Routes Ahead column, received mail on their behalf, and notified them via a Letter-Box column. By 1914-42,000 people used the service, and it was accepted as an official address for World War I draft letters.
Billboard is currently owned through the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group, a unit of Eldridge Industries, controlled by Todd Boehly. Penske Media Corporation assumed operations of Billboard through a joint venture called PMRC announced on the 23rd of September, 2020.