Short answers, pulled from the story.
Joseph Paxton designed the Crystal Palace using a modular ridge-and-furrow roof system first seen at Chatsworth House in 1836. Fox Henderson and Co served as the civil engineering contractor for the build.
Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition inside the new Crystal Palace on the 1st of May 1851. The event closed on the 15th of October 1851 after generating a surplus of £186,000.
A consortium led by Samuel Laing and Leo Schuster moved the structure to Penge Place on Sydenham Hill starting in 1852. The site spanned across Surrey and Kent boundaries until 1899 when the county line moved.
The building burned down on the evening of the 30th of November 1936 due to an office fire started by an explosion. Eighty-nine fire engines and over 400 firemen could not extinguish the blaze before it consumed the roof.
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins created 33 lifesized models of dinosaurs and extinct animals in 1854. Edward Milner designed Italian Gardens fountains and the Great Maze during the park development phase.