Short answers, pulled from the story.
Mahmud II was born on the 20th of July 1785. After his father Abdul Hamid I died in 1789, young Mahmud was confined within the Kafes prison system of the Topkapi Palace for nearly two decades.
A Georgian slave girl named Cevri Kalfa threw ashes into the faces of assassins approaching Mahmud's chamber to blind them temporarily. This delay allowed the future sultan to escape through a window and climb onto the harem roof where pages helped him descend using tied pieces of cloth as a makeshift ladder.
June 1826 witnessed the violent destruction of the Janissary corps known as the Auspicious Incident. Sultan Mahmud II orchestrated this operation by ordering his reformed military wing to fire upon the Janissaries barracks and burn Belgrad Forest outside Istanbul to incinerate remaining remnants.
The year 1812 marked a significant territorial loss when the Treaty of Bucharest forced the Ottoman Empire to cede Bessarabia to Russia. France conquered Ottoman Algeria beginning in 1830, and by July 1832 the Treaty of Constantinople required Mahmud II to recognize an independent Greek state following the Battle of Navarino in 1827.
In 1834 a firman dated February 22nd abolished charges public functionaries had long taken from locals when traveling through provinces. In 1838 Mahmud established the Supreme Council of Judicial Ordinances and introduced a Council of Ministers known as Meclis-i Vükela the following year to reestablish royal authority and increase administrative efficiency.