Short answers, pulled from the story.
Rama is a major deity in Hinduism, worshipped as the seventh avatar of Vishnu. In Rama-centric Hindu traditions he is considered the Supreme Being and is also known as the ideal man, maryada purushottama, meaning the best of upholders of Dharma.
Rama was born to King Dasharatha and Queen Kausalya in Ayodhya, capital of the Kingdom of Kosala. After fourteen years of exile in Dandaka forest, his wife Sita was kidnapped by the demon-king Ravana. Rama, allied with the monkey king Sugriva and the commander Hanuman, waged a war against Ravana, killed him, and returned with Sita to Ayodhya, where he was crowned king.
Rama Navami falls on the ninth day of the bright half of the lunar month of Chaitra, which corresponds to March or April in the Gregorian calendar. The festival marks Rama's birthday and is observed through temple recitals, bhajan and kirtan performances, charitable events, and major celebrations in cities including Ayodhya, Janakpur in Nepal, and Bhadrachalam.
The primary Ramayana was composed by the sage Valmiki in Sanskrit. John Brockington, a professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, estimates that a date of roughly the fifth century BCE is the most reasonable estimate based on the language, style, and content of the work, though the text was likely transmitted orally before that.
In Jain texts, Rama is known as Padma or Pauma and is the eighth Baladeva among the sixty-three salakapurusas. Unlike the Hindu version where Rama kills Ravana, in the Jain telling it is Lakshmana who kills Ravana; Rama remains non-violent throughout. At the end of his life, Rama becomes a Jaina monk and attains moksha, while Sita becomes a Jaina nun.
Ramlila is a festival of dramatic performances held every autumn across India and parts of Southeast Asia, re-enacting the Ramayana or the Ramcharitmanas. The festivities were inscribed by UNESCO in 2008 as one of the Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity. The festival climaxes at Dussehra, when giant effigies of the demon-king Ravana are burned with fireworks.