Short answers, pulled from the story.
Akira Toriyama started writing Dragon Ball when Weekly Shōnen Jump published the first chapter on the 3rd of December 1984. He continued writing until the 5th of June 1995 when he felt exhausted and needed a break.
The story structure drew from the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West where Goku took the role of Sun Wukong. Toriyama also studied Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon from 1973 and Jackie Chan's Drunken Master from 1978 for inspiration.
Shueisha collected 519 individual chapters into 42 tankōbon volumes starting the 10th of September 1985 and ending the 4th of August 1995. A revised kanzenban edition appeared between the 4th of December 2002 and the 2nd of April 2004 with 34 volumes.
Dragon Ball Z began broadcasting on Fuji TV on the 26th of April 1989 and concluded the 31st of January 1996 with 291 episodes. The show adapted the final 325 chapters of the original manga after the first series ended.
Dragon Ball sold over 160 million copies in Japan alone by 2016 making it one of the best-selling manga ever. Worldwide tankōbon sales reached 350 million including pirated versions bringing total distribution above 400 million copies.