Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Sandinista National Liberation Front was founded in January 1961 by Carlos Fonseca Amador, Silvio Mayorga, Tomás Borge, and others. The group initially operated as the New Nicaragua Movement before officially adopting the name Sandinista two years after its founding to honor Augusto César Sandino.
The rise of the FSLN was triggered by the magnitude 6.2 earthquake on the 23rd of December 1972 that devastated Managua and President Anastasio Somoza Debayle's embezzlement of international aid. These events led guerrilla groups affiliated with the FSLN to seize hostages and attack government targets starting in late 1974.
In 1981, the United States authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to fund and train anti-Sandinista guerrillas known as Contras who operated from bases in Honduras and Costa Rica. The Reagan administration imposed a full trade embargo while secretly financing the Contras through arms sales to Iran during the Iran-Contra affair.
Violeta Barrios de Chamorro defeated Daniel Ortega on the 25th of February 1990 with 55% of the popular vote against his 41%. This election ended the decade-long civil war despite the Bush administration having funneled $49.75 million in covert aid to Contras and $9 million to UNO candidates.
The ideology of Sandinismo blended Marxist class struggle with liberation theology and Christian socialism under leaders like Carlos Fonseca Amador and Ernesto Cardenal. Catholic priests served as ministers within the government while churches became central organizing hubs for the FSLN alongside traditional communist symbols.