Short answers, pulled from the story.
The earliest written reference to the game appears in 548 BCE within the historical annal Zuo Zhuan. This ancient text mentions the game as one of four essential arts for cultured Chinese scholars alongside calligraphy and painting.
Legends trace the invention back to Emperor Yao who supposedly asked his counselor Shun to design it for his unruly son Danzhu. The game originally used a 17x17 grid before the standard 19x19 board emerged during the Tang dynasty between 618 and 907 CE.
Players take turns placing stones on vacant intersections of a 19x19 grid containing exactly 361 points. A full set contains 181 black stones and 180 white ones covering all 361 points.
In 2016 AlphaGo defeated world champion Lee Sedol marking a landmark moment in artificial intelligence history. By 2016 machine learning techniques finally allowed computers to surpass top human professionals consistently.
In 1924 the Nihon Ki-in or Japanese Go Association was formed after the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Top players often played newspaper-sponsored matches of 2 to 10 games during the early 20th century.