Short answers, pulled from the story.
Flash Gordon was created by artist Alex Raymond and first published on the 7th of January 1934. Raymond developed the strip for King Features Syndicate after the company failed to acquire the rights to Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter of Mars stories. Ghostwriter Don W. Moore collaborated with Raymond throughout his tenure.
Flash Gordon was created to compete directly with the commercially successful Buck Rogers comic strip. Raymond drew on the 1933 Philip Wylie novel When Worlds Collide for the initial storyline, adapting its themes of an approaching planet threatening Earth, an athletic hero, a girlfriend, and a scientist traveling by rocket.
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster based Superman's uniform of tights and a cape on costumes worn by Flash Gordon. Bob Kane's Batman drawing for Detective Comics No. 27 was based on a 1937 Alex Raymond Flash Gordon drawing. George Lucas created Star Wars after being unable to acquire Flash Gordon film rights from producer Dino De Laurentiis in the 1970s.
By the late 1930s, 50 million people were reading Flash Gordon each week. The strip appeared in 130 newspapers and had been translated into eight foreign languages. Distribution was disrupted during the 1930s and 1940s when newspapers in Nazi Germany were forbidden from printing the strip and the outbreak of World War II ended its run in many countries.
Sam J. Jones played Flash Gordon in the 1980 film directed by Mike Hodges. The musical score, including the signature theme "Flash," was composed and performed entirely by rock band Queen. The cast also included Max von Sydow as Ming, Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin, and Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan.
The Amazing Interplanetary Adventures of Flash Gordon was a 26-episode weekly radio serial that began on the 22nd of April 1935 and ended on the 26th of October 1935. Flash was played by Gale Gordon, later known for his television roles with Lucille Ball. A daily follow-up series aired 60 episodes, ending on the 6th of February 1936.