Short answers, pulled from the story.
The earliest recorded performance of Richard II occurred on the 9th of December 1595 at the home of Edward Hoby in Canon Row. This private showing marked one of the earliest documented stagings of Shakespeare's history play about the English monarch who ruled from 1377 to 1399.
Shakespeare drew upon Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England Scotlande and Irelande as his primary historical material with the second edition published in 1587 providing the earliest possible date for composition. Jean Froissart's Chroniques offered another source through John Bouchier's translation while Edward Hall's Union of the Two Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York also appears to have influenced the playwright.
Supporters of Robert Devereux Earl of Essex commissioned a special performance at the Globe Theatre on the 7th of February 1601 on the eve of their armed rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I. The conspirators paid forty shillings above ordinary rates to stage this play which players considered too old to attract large audiences.
The play entered the Stationers Company Register on the 29th of August 1597 under bookseller Andrew Wise's name followed by two additional quartos in 1598 making it the only Shakespeare play published three times within two calendar years. A fourth quarto appeared in 1608 and a fifth in 1615 before the work reached its First Folio publication in 1623.
The first three quarto editions lack what became known as the deposition scene while the 1608 quarto includes a shorter version likely derived from a prompt book used during actual performances. Title pages from 1608 reference a deposition scene that had been recently performed despite earlier restrictions and traditional explanations suggest censorship by Edmund Tylney prevented early inclusion but no external evidence confirms this hypothesis.