Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Scottish-born Robert Gair invented the pre-cut cardboard box in 1890. He was a Brooklyn printer and paper-bag maker who discovered the method after a metal ruler accidentally cut a batch of seed bags instead of creasing them, showing him that cutting and creasing could be done in a single operation.
Corrugated board was patented as a shipping material on the 20th of December 1871. The patent was issued to Albert L. Jones of New York City for single-sided corrugated board, which he used for wrapping bottles and glass lantern chimneys.
Paperboard is a thick paper-based material with a basis weight above 224 g/m2 according to ISO standards, used for folding cartons and set-up boxes. Corrugated fiberboard is a layered construction made of a fluted, wave-shaped corrugated medium bonded between flat liner boards; the flute gives it the strength needed for shipping and storage.
A cardboard box was added to the National Toy Hall of Fame in the United States in 2005, recognized as one of very few non-brand-specific objects to receive the honor. It was included because children routinely use boxes as open-ended imaginative playthings. A toy house made from a large cardboard box was placed in the collection at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.
The Kellogg Company was the first to use cardboard boxes as cereal cartons. The rise of lightweight flaked cereals drove broader adoption of the cardboard carton as consumer packaging.
In 2012, British stuntman Gary Connery landed safely after a wingsuit jump without deploying his parachute by touching down on a runway built from thousands of cardboard boxes stacked 3.6 meters high. The boxes absorbed his impact because the mass and viscosity of the enclosed air, combined with the limited stiffness of the boxes, dissipated the energy of the landing.