Short answers, pulled from the story.
ISO was founded on the 23rd of February 1947. It grew out of a meeting in London in October 1946, where delegates from 25 countries agreed to merge the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations and the United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee into a single new body.
ISO is not an acronym. The founders chose the short form ISO because the full name would abbreviate differently in English (IOS) and French (OIN). The organization states the name is derived from the Greek word isos, meaning "equal", though this etymology may have been attributed after the founding meetings rather than during them.
ISO has published over 25,000 international standards, covering fields from food safety and healthcare to IT, agriculture, and manufacturing. The organization has over 800 technical committees and subcommittees working on standards development.
ISO has 175 national members, with each country represented by only one member body. Member bodies are the only category with voting rights; correspondent members and subscriber members participate in a more limited capacity.
Office Open XML was approved as ISO/IEC 29500 in April 2008 through a fast-track procedure, prompting criticism that Microsoft had lobbied countries not traditionally active in ISO and stacked technical committees with supporters. Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, publicly stated the process de-valued confidence in standards setting. ISO subsequently tightened its rules so that participating members who fail to respond to votes are demoted to observer status.
Several common products carry the ISO name directly. Disk image files with the .iso extension follow the ISO 9660 file system standard. Camera film speed ratings are defined by ISO 6, ISO 2240, and ISO 5800. The child safety seat attachment system in cars is called ISOFIX, from ISO 13216, and the agricultural communication protocol ISOBUS comes from ISO 11783.