Short answers, pulled from the story.
The first Reform synagogue was dedicated on the 17th of July 1810 in Seesen, Germany, and was founded by Israel Jacobson. Jacobson introduced an organ and a choir to improve the aesthetic quality of worship and delivered sermons in German to keep young people from leaving the synagogue. This temple closed in 1813 but established a precedent for adapting Jewish practice to the modern age.
Abraham Geiger is often regarded as the founding father of Reform Judaism and he applied the historical-critical method to the Torah. He proposed the concept of progressive revelation, suggesting that God's will is continuously revealed through human reason and historical development rather than being fixed at the moment of the theophany at Mount Sinai. This shift allowed Reform thinkers to discard elements of Jewish law they deemed obsolete or superstitious.
The Breslau conference announced that women must enjoy identical obligations and prerogatives in worship and communal affairs as early as 1846. Sally Priesand was ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1972, making her the first female rabbi of the US ordained by a rabbinical seminary. This ordination marked the second formally ordained female rabbi in Jewish history.
The North American Union for Reform Judaism accepted the principle of patrilineal descent in 1983 to cope with the phenomenon that 80% of all Reform-raised Jews in the United States wed between 2000 and 2013 were intermarried. This decision recognized all children born to a couple in which a single member was Jewish as a Jew on condition that they received corresponding education and committed themselves as such. The British Movement for Reform Judaism recognized patrilineal descent in 2015.
Tikkun Olam meaning repairing the world has become the central motto of Reform Judaism and serves as one of the main channels for adherents to express their affiliation and engage with social justice issues. The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism became an important lobby in service of progressive causes such as the rights of minorities. The movement has strongly identified with progressive and liberal agendas in political and social terms.