Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Guadalcanal campaign ran from the 7th of August 1942 to the 9th of February 1943. Allied forces landed on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida Island on the 7th of August, and Japan evacuated its last troops from Guadalcanal by the 9th of February 1943.
Henderson Field was an airstrip on Guadalcanal named on the 12th of August 1942 after Marine aviator Lofton R. Henderson, who was killed at the Battle of Midway. Control of the airfield was the central objective of the campaign for both sides; the aircraft based there, known as the Cactus Air Force, prevented Japanese ships from supplying their forces on Guadalcanal during daylight hours.
The Tokyo Express was the Allied nickname for Japanese nightly destroyer runs down New Georgia Sound, called "The Slot," to deliver troops and supplies to Guadalcanal. The Japanese called these missions "rat transportation." The destroyers moved fast enough to complete a round trip in a single night, minimizing exposure to Allied air attack.
On the night of the 9th of August 1942, Japanese Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa led a force of seven cruisers and one destroyer in a surprise attack that sank one Australian and three American cruisers, damaging two more Allied ships. The Japanese suffered only moderate damage to one cruiser. Mikawa then withdrew without attacking the defenseless Allied transport ships, a decision later considered a critical strategic error.
The Battle of Edson's Ridge took place on the nights of the 12th and the 13th of September 1942, when Major General Kawaguchi's 3,000 troops attacked 840 Marines under Colonel Merritt Edson on a narrow coral ridge south of Henderson Field. The Japanese were repulsed with about 850 killed; the Marines lost 104. After the battle, Japan's senior command concluded that Guadalcanal might be the decisive battle of the war.
Japan decided to abandon Guadalcanal in December 1942 after a series of costly failures to recapture Henderson Field. The October 1942 ground offensive cost Japan 2,200-3,000 troops in two days of fighting, and the campaign was draining resources from every other Japanese operation in the Pacific. The evacuation of the last Japanese forces was completed by the 9th of February 1943.