Short answers, pulled from the story.
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically moved in small increments between individually photographed frames. When the series of frames is played back, the objects appear to move independently. Puppets, clay figures, and cut-out materials are among the most common subjects.
The stop trick technique underlying stop motion appears in Edison Manufacturing Company's 1895 film The Execution of Mary Stuart, which is the oldest known surviving example. Before cinema existed, pre-film devices such as Jules Duboscq's 1852 stroboscopic disc used separately photographed positions of objects to suggest motion.
Will Vinton and sculptor Bob Gardiner won the first Oscar for a stop-motion film with their 1975 experimental short Closed Mondays. Vinton subsequently coined and trademarked the term "claymation" in 1977, a trademark now held by Laika Entertainment, Inc.
Go motion was co-developed by Phil Tippett and first used on The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. Unlike standard stop motion, go motion uses a computer to shift parts of a model slightly during each frame's exposure, producing a more realistic motion blur. Standard stop motion leaves puppets perfectly still during exposure, which can make movement look slightly stiff.
Laika, the stop-motion studio that succeeded Will Vinton Studios, has released six feature films since 2009, including Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings, Missing Link, and Wildwood, which together have grossed over $400 million.
The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick and produced by Tim Burton in 1993, became the highest-grossing stop-motion animated film of its time, taking in over $50 million domestically. Selick later directed James and the Giant Peach and Coraline, while Burton directed Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie.