Short answers, pulled from the story.
Willard Libby developed the method of radiocarbon dating after moving to the University of Chicago in 1945. He published his initial proposal regarding carbon-14 in living matter in a paper released in 1946.
The half-life of carbon-14 is approximately 5,730 years. This duration allows scientists to measure the decay of radioactive atoms to determine the age of organic materials.
Hans Suess used tree-ring sequences spanning 8,000 years in the 1960s to verify the accuracy of the method. Each tree ring preserves a record of the atmospheric carbon-14 ratio from the year it grew, allowing researchers to construct calibration curves that correct errors caused by variations over time.
More than 20 radiocarbon dating laboratories had been set up worldwide within 11 years of the announcement made in December 1949. By the end of the 1950s, there were already more than 20 active research laboratories operating globally.
Willard Libby and James Arnold analyzed samples taken from the tombs of two Egyptian kings named Zoser and Sneferu. These samples were independently dated to 2625 BC ± 75 years before being measured by radiocarbon methods.