Short answers, pulled from the story.
Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens sketched a skeleton taking off its skull in the year 1659, which represents one of the oldest known records concerning the magic lantern. German Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher provided the earliest descriptions of projection systems in 1645 with his book Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae.
The magic lantern evolved as a natural successor to earlier optical curiosities such as the camera obscura box sold by Dutch inventor Cornelis Drebbel in 1622. Pierre Petit wrote to Huygens in 1664 asking for specifications to construct his own version and added a concave mirror behind the lamp to direct more light through the lens.
German optician Themme produced moving slides around the year 1709 that included rotating wheels cut from glass plates. Two British patents for slides with moving jointed figures were granted in 1891 following innovations like slipping slides, lever slides, pulley slides, and Fantoccini slides described by Pieter van Musschenbroek in 1739.
Magician Phylidor created what must have been the first true phantasmagoria show in Vienna from 1790 to 1792 using mobile magic lanterns with the recently invented Argand lamp. Etienne-Gaspard Robert became famous with his own Fantasmagorie show in Paris from 1798 to 1803 and patented a mobile Fantascope lantern in 1798.
Candles and oil lamps produced very dim projected images when the device was invented in the 17th century until the invention of the Argand lamp in the 1790s helped make images brighter. Limelight invented in the 1820s emitted about 6000 to 8000 lumens making them even brighter before the intensely bright electric arc lamp appeared in the 1860s.
Only 28 original lanterns from the first 150 years exist as of 2009 while museums like the Museum of Precinema in Padua preserve over 10000 original slides. A collaborative research project called A Million Pictures started in June 2015 lasting until May 2018 to address sustainable preservation of tens of thousands of lantern slides across European libraries and museums.