Short answers, pulled from the story.
The word biology first appeared in the title of Volume 3 of Michael Christoph Hanow's Philosophiae naturalis sive physicae dogmaticae, published on the 1st of January 1766. This volume included Geologia, biologia, phytologia generalis et dendrologia.
James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double-helical structure of DNA in 1953 marking the transition to molecular genetics. Their discovery built upon earlier work by Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase who conducted experiments in the 1940s pointing to DNA as trait-carrying units within chromosomes.
All life on Earth descended from a last universal common ancestor living about 3.5 billion years ago. Geologists divide Earth history into four eons starting with Hadean followed by Archean, Proterozoic, and Phanerozoic.
Bacteria constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms while Archaea form another prokaryotic domain initially classified as bacteria receiving name archaebacteria now fallen out of use. Their cell membranes rely on ether lipids called archaeols distinct from other domains.
Non-avian dinosaurs died off 66 million years ago following the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. Dinosaurs dominated Jurassic and Cretaceous periods until this catastrophe occurred after which mammals increased rapidly in size and diversity.