Short answers, pulled from the story.
John Milton was born on the 9th of December 1608 in Bread Street, London. He grew up in a household where his father, a wealthy scrivener and composer, provided the financial means for his exceptional education at St Paul's School and Christ's College at the University of Cambridge.
John Milton traveled to France and Italy from May 1638 to the summer of 1639, meeting figures like Galileo in Florence and engaging with European intellectual circles. The journey was cut short by news of civil war in England and the death of his childhood friend Charles Diodati, prompting his return to a nation on the brink of conflict.
John Milton wrote Areopagitica in 1644 as a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing following a hostile response to his pamphlets on divorce. The work aligned him with the parliamentary cause and synthesized the ideals of neo-Roman liberty with Christian liberty to defend freedom of speech and the press.
John Milton composed Paradise Lost between 1658 and 1664 while totally blind, dictating his verse and prose to amanuenses including the poet Andrew Marvell. He lived in a garden house in Petty France, Westminster, during this period and sold the publication rights to publisher Samuel Simmons for £5.
John Milton died on the 8th of November 1674, just a month before his 66th birthday. He was buried in the church of St Giles-without-Cripplegate, Fore Street, London, and a monument was added in 1737 on Westminster Abbey in London, UK, to commemorate his life and work.