Short answers, pulled from the story.
Mahavira was a 6th or 5th century BCE Indian spiritual leader regarded by Jains as the 24th and final Tirthankara, or Supreme Preacher, of the current time cycle. He is credited with reviving and reforming an earlier Jain community, codifying the five vows of ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmacharya, and aparigraha, and establishing the four-fold order of monks, nuns, and lay followers that allowed Jainism to survive as a living tradition.
Traditional Jain accounts place his birth in 599 BCE. The Svetambara sect holds that he died in 527 BCE, while the Digambara sect gives 510 BCE. Modern scholars, including Paul Dundas, suggest he may have died around 425 BCE or a few years after, based on his documented contemporaneity with Gautama Buddha.
Both the Uttarapurana and Kalpa Sutra name Kundagrama in the Kingdom of the Videhas, located in present-day Bihar, India, as his birthplace. The exact location within Bihar is disputed; candidates include a suburb of the ancient city of Vaishali and the village of Basu Kund, about 60 km north of Patna.
Mahavira taught that ahimsa, or non-violence, is the supreme moral virtue and the first of Jainism's five great vows. He held that it applies to actions, speech, and thought, and extends to all living beings including animals, plants, insects, and even the beings he believed to inhabit water, fire, and wind. Mahatma Gandhi regarded Mahavira as the greatest authority on ahimsa.
Anekantavada, or many-sided reality, is Mahavira's teaching that truth and reality have multiple aspects that language alone cannot fully express. Any verbal claim about reality is syat, meaning valid in some respect but still a partial perspective. The Jain Agamas record his approach to metaphysical questions as a consistent "qualified yes."
Mahavira attained Kevala Jnana, or omniscience, under a Sala tree on the bank of the River Rijuvalika near Jrimbhikagrama, at age 43, after twelve and a half years of ascetic practice. He died at age 72 in Pawapuri, in present-day Bihar; the Jal Mandir, a white marble temple set in a lotus-filled lake in Pawapuri, marks the site of his liberation and is the most sacred Jain pilgrimage destination associated with him.