Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Super NES began shipping in limited quantities in North America on the 23rd of August 1991, with a nationwide release date of the 9th of September 1991. In Japan, it launched earlier as the Super Famicom on the 21st of November 1990.
Nintendo sold approximately 49.1 million Super NES consoles worldwide, including 23.35 million in the Americas and 17.17 million in Japan. This made it the best-selling console of the fourth generation.
Masayuki Uemura, the same Nintendo engineer who designed the original Famicom, led the Super NES hardware design. The console's audio subsystem was designed by Sony engineer Ken Kutaragi, who nearly lost his job over the project before Sony CEO Norio Ohga intervened.
Donkey Kong Country, released in November 1994, sold 6.1 million copies in its final 45 days of 1994, making it the fastest-selling video game in history to that date. The game helped maintain the Super NES's market relevance against early 32-bit consoles from Sony and Sega.
The Super NES Classic Edition, released in September 2017, included 21 games and was bundled with two Super NES-style controllers. It notably included Star Fox 2, which had never been commercially released during the original console's lifespan.
The Super NES launched two years after the Genesis but quickly gained ground. Nintendo secured the first console version of Street Fighter II, which took more than a year to appear on Genesis. According to a 2014 Wedbush Securities report based on NPD data, the Super NES ultimately outsold the Genesis in the U.S. market by 1.5 million units.