Short answers, pulled from the story.
The name Moldavia emerged from the Moldova River based on a legend recorded in Descriptio Moldaviae between 1714 and 1716 by Dimitrie Cantemir. Voivode Dragoș named the river after his female hound Molda who was killed while hunting an aurochs near its shores.
Bogdan of Cuhea crossed the Carpathians in 1359 to take control of Moldavia after falling out with the Hungarian king. He moved the seat of power from Baia to Siret before Petru II Mușat relocated it to Suceava.
Stephen the Great took the throne in 1457 and won the Battle of Vaslui against Ottoman reprisals in 1475. He also blocked Hungarian interventions at the Battle of Baia and resisted a Polish invasion in the Battle of the Cosmin Forest in 1497.
In 1775 Moldavia lost its northwestern part which became known as Bukovina to the Habsburg Empire. The Treaty of Jassy in 1792 forced the Ottoman Empire to cede Yedisan to the Russian Empire, followed by the cession of Bessarabia in 1812.
Slavery existed until it was abolished in stages during the 1840s and 1850s through a campaign by young revolutionaries. A bill drafted by Mihail Kogălniceanu and Petre Mavrogheni emancipated all slaves to taxpayer status in December 1855 following a proposal by Prince Grigore Alexandru Ghica.