Short answers, pulled from the story.
Iceland sits directly on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the Eurasian Plate and North American Plate drift apart. This unique position makes it the only place on Earth where a mid-ocean ridge rises above sea level to form land.
The Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson established the first permanent settlement in present-day Reykjavík in 874 AD according to the Landnámabók manuscript. Before him Norse explorers like Naddodd and Garðar Svavarsson had visited but did not stay permanently.
Volcanic eruptions like Laki in 1783 killed nearly a quarter of the population over half of all livestock died in the years following that eruption while famine claimed about one-quarter of the people.
Tourism surged afterward making Iceland a popular holiday destination attracting over 1.7 million visitors in 2016. Unemployment dropped to around 2 percent by 2014 following crisis management decisions made back in 2008.
Vigdís Finnbogadóttir became world's first democratically elected female head of state assuming presidency on the 1st of August 1980. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir became first openly LGBT head of government when she took office in 2009.