Short answers, pulled from the story.
All knowledge about Socrates comes from posthumous accounts by his students Plato and Xenophon, the comic dramatist Aristophanes, and Aristotle. These sources often contradict each other sharply so reconstructing the historical figure becomes nearly impossible.
Socrates was born around 470 BC or 469 BC to Sophroniscus and Phaenarete in the Athenian deme of Alopece. His father worked as a stoneworker while his mother served as a midwife.
In 399 BC Socrates faced formal accusations of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens initiated by Meletus seeking the death penalty under the law of asebeia. The jurors rejected his offer of exile and sentenced him to drink poison hemlock after finding him guilty.
The Socratic method known as elenchus proceeds through short questions and answers designed to reveal contradictions between interlocutors' premises and conclusions. Each round of questioning exposes inconsistencies until participants admit they do not truly know what they thought they understood.
Socrates believed all human action directly or indirectly pursued eudaimonia which translates to happiness or flourishing with virtue and knowledge linked closely together. He taught that no one errs willingly since acting against one's understanding is impossible according to motivational intellectualism.