Short answers, pulled from the story.
Greek colonists established cities and kingdoms in Bactria and India during the Hellenistic period as early as the 6th century BCE when Alexander the Great conquered parts of India. This contact resulted in Greco-Buddhist art found in hundreds of monasteries across modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Indo-Greek king Menander I ruled from approximately 165/155 BCE until 130 BCE and adopted Buddhism himself. His story appears in the Milinda Panha scripture where he questions Buddhist doctrine with a Greek philosopher named Nagasena, and coins minted under his reign feature both Buddhist symbols like the dharmacakra wheel and traditional Greek imagery such as palm branches.
Jesuit missionaries including St. Francis Xavier and Ippolito Desideri sent detailed accounts of Buddhist doctrine back to Europe during the early 16th century. Desideri spent years learning Tibetan language and doctrine before writing books that criticized Buddhism while promoting Christianity.
Shunryu Suzuki arrived in San Francisco in 1959 when Zen had become popular among beatnik groups. He established the San Francisco Zen Center during the middle of the 60s counterculture movement after publishing Zen Mind Beginner's Mind in 1970 which quickly became one of America's Buddhist classics.
Kagyu Samye Ling temple opened in Scotland in 1967 as the first Tibetan Buddhist center established in the West. Choje Akong Tulku Rinpoche and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche co-founded this institution named after Samye monastery originally built in Tibet.
The Insight Meditation Society opened in Barre Massachusetts in 1975 founded by Sharon Salzberg Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein after studying Vipassana masters in Asia. These lay teachers lead movements promoting mainly meditation with minimal doctrinal content presented as secular techniques rather than religion.