Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Conservative Party was formally founded in 1834 under Robert Peel, who announced it with the Tamworth Manifesto. The name "Conservative" had been suggested by J. Wilson Croker in a Quarterly Review article in 1830, and it became the dominant usage over the older label of Tory by 1845.
Thatcherism is the right-wing political ideology built by Margaret Thatcher, drawing on ideas from thinkers including Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. It rejected the post-war consensus of nationalisation, strong trade unions, heavy regulation, and high taxes, and replaced it with free-market economics, privatisation of publicly owned industries, and policies like the Right to Buy scheme for council house tenants.
The 2024 general election produced the lowest seat total in the history of the Conservative Party, falling well below the previous record low of 156 seats set at the 1906 general election. The party lost to Labour and moved into opposition, with Rishi Sunak resigning as prime minister.
Black Wednesday was the 16th of September 1992, when the John Major government suspended Britain's membership of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism after the pound fell below its minimum permitted level. The crisis destroyed the Conservatives' reputation for economic competence and contributed to their landslide defeat in 1997.
Conservative MPs vote in successive rounds to reduce candidates to two, and the wider party membership then chooses between those two finalists. This system was introduced by William Hague in 1998. Before that, a leader emerged through an opaque process of consultation among senior figures known as the Magic Circle, before a formal MP ballot system was introduced in the mid-1960s under Alec Douglas-Home.
Liz Truss resigned as prime minister on the 20th of October 2022 after just 44 days in office, making hers the shortest premiership in British history. Her mini-budget on the 23rd of September caused the pound to fall to a record low of 1.03 against the US dollar and pushed UK gilt yields to 4.3%, triggering an emergency bond-buying programme from the Bank of England and widespread condemnation from the public, Labour, and her own party.