Short answers, pulled from the story.
Chiang Kai-shek was born on the 31st of October 1887 in Xikou, a town in Fenghua, Zhejiang, approximately 30 kilometers west of central Ningbo. He was the third child of his father and the first child of his father's third wife, members of a prosperous salt merchant family.
Historian Odd Arne Westad argues that the Communists won because they made fewer military mistakes and because Chiang antagonized too many interest groups through his pursuit of a powerful centralized government. Hyperinflation, rampant corruption, low military morale, and infiltration by Communist agents further weakened the Nationalists, while the Communists won rural support through land reform policies.
The White Terror refers to the political repression Chiang imposed after the KMT retreated to Taiwan in 1949. About 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned for real or perceived opposition to the KMT, most labeled as "bandit spies" or "Taiwanese Separatists." Martial law lasted until 1987, and the associated repression continued until 1992.
On the 12th of December 1936, Nationalist commander Zhang Xueliang and general Yang Hucheng kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in Xi'an and held him for two weeks. They forced him to form a Second United Front with the Chinese Communists to fight Japan. After his release, Zhang returned with Chiang to Nanjing and was placed under house arrest, while the generals who assisted were executed.
Chiang was re-elected president five times by the National Assembly, serving from 1948 until his death on the 5th of April 1975, a total of 25 years. The Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion allowed him to exceed the constitution's two-term limit and to be re-elected by the same Eternal Parliament in 1954, 1960, 1966, and 1972.
Soong Mei-ling, known in the United States as "Madame Chiang," was Chiang's American-educated wife whom he married on the 1st of December 1927. She maintained the support of the American China Lobby, which viewed the couple as the hope for a Christian and democratic China. She also campaigned for women's rights and education in China, though critics linked her family, the Soong family, to embezzlement of tens of millions of dollars from the Nationalist government.