Short answers, pulled from the story.
The first confirmed public showing of a two-dimensional animated film in Japan was Les Exploits de Feu Follet by Emile Cohl on the 15th of May 1912. The earliest surviving domestic anime is The Dull Sword, released on the 30th of June 1917, though a title called Convex New Picture Book Imo Suke Boar Hunting Volume is recognized as the first domestic anime film.
The founding generation of Japanese animators includes Oten Shimokawa, Jun'ichi Kouchi, and Seitaro Kitayama, commonly called the fathers of anime. All three were active in the late 1910s; Kouchi is regarded as the most technically advanced Japanese animator of that decade, with a filmography of around fifteen works.
Momotaro: Umi no Shinpei, directed by Mitsuyo Seo, is the first anime feature film. It was released on the 12th of April 1945, in the final weeks of the Second World War, and was commissioned by the Imperial Japanese military.
Osamu Tezuka established Mushi Production in 1961 and produced Astro Boy, which premiered on Fuji TV on the 1st of January 1963 and became the first anime series shown widely to Western audiences. Mushi Production also produced the first anime to broadcast in the United States, airing on NBC in 1963.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train, released on the 16th of October 2020, is the highest-grossing anime film worldwide. It earned 10 billion yen in its first 10 days, surpassing Spirited Away's previous record, and became the world's highest-grossing film of 2020.
Studio Ghibli was founded by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata under the supervision of former Animage editor Toshio Suzuki, following the critical and commercial success of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in 1984. The studio's first film was Castle in the Sky in 1986.