Short answers, pulled from the story.
The oldest intentional use of black coal was documented in Ostrava, Petřkovice, at a settlement on Landek Hill dating to 25,000-23,000 years BC, confirmed by radiocarbon dating. Archaeological evidence in China places surface mining and household use of coal at approximately 3490 BC.
Coal became the primary energy source for industry and transportation from the 18th century through the 1950s, powering steam engines that drove railways and steamships during the Victorian era. Britain's annual coal output rose from under three million tons in 1700 to over thirty million tons by 1830.
The Senghenydd disaster on the 14th of October 1913 was the worst single coal mining disaster in British history. An explosion and subsequent fire in the South Wales coalfield killed 436 men and boys, with only 72 bodies ever recovered.
The 1984 miners' strike was a response to the Conservative government's plans under Margaret Thatcher to shrink the coal industry. By the early 1980s, many pits were nearly 100 years old and considered uneconomic compared to cheap North Sea oil and gas and European subsidy levels. The strike failed to stop the closures.
China is by far the largest producer of coal in the world. In 2007, China produced over 2.8 billion tons of coal, representing approximately 39.8 percent of all coal produced globally that year. An estimated five million people work in China's coal-mining industry.
Deep coal mining in the UK ended on the 18th of December 2015, when Kellingley Colliery completed its final coaling shift with the loss of 450 jobs. The last deep pit in South Wales, Tower Colliery in Hirwaun, Rhondda Cynon Taff, had closed in January 2008 with the loss of 120 jobs.