Short answers, pulled from the story.
LaserDisc was commercially launched on the 11th of December 1978, in Atlanta, Georgia, under the MCA DiscoVision brand. The first title released in North America was the MCA DiscoVision edition of Jaws, available on the 15th of December 1978.
LaserDisc failed to achieve widespread adoption primarily due to the high cost of players and their inability to record. Marketplace confusion with the technologically inferior CED format, which also went by the name Videodisc, added to consumer hesitation. At peak, only about 2% of American households, roughly two million, owned a player.
LaserDisc offered approximately 425 to 440 horizontal lines of resolution, nearly double the 240 lines available on VHS. Compared to DVD, LaserDisc used analog video without digital compression, making it immune to macroblocking artifacts, though DVD's fully digital format provided higher fidelity color separation and a sharper overall image.
Pioneer ceased production of LaserDisc players in July 2009. The company continued to offer maintenance services until the 30th of September 2020, when its remaining parts inventory was exhausted. A total of 16.8 million LaserDisc players were sold worldwide, with 9.5 million units sold by Pioneer.
The last known LaserDisc release of any kind was Onta Station vol. 1018, a karaoke title issued exclusively in Japan on the 21st of March 2007. The last film title released in Japan was Tokyo Raiders on the 21st of September 2001, and the last North American release was Paramount's Bringing Out the Dead on the 3rd of October 2000.
The 1984 Criterion Collection edition of Citizen Kane is generally credited as the first Special Edition home video release, establishing the standard for supplemental content including commentary tracks, documentaries, and still photographs. King Kong holds the distinction of being the first LaserDisc release to include an audio commentary track.