Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ted Johnstone, real name David McDaniel, founded the first Tolkien fan club during the era of 1960. This organized group emerged from science fiction fandom shortly after The Lord of the Rings volumes appeared between 1954 and 1955.
Foster attributes the surge of American fandom in the mid-1960s to a combination of the hippie subculture and anti-war movement. Dark Lord Sauron represented the United States military draft during the Vietnam War for many young Americans.
Four websites are described as essential in Stuart D. Lee's 2014 scholarly handbook A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien. These include the Tolkien Gateway, The One Ring.Net, The Tolkien Library, and The Tolkien Society.
A Tolkien Reading Day held annually on the 25th of March was proposed by Sean Kirst, a columnist at The Post-Standard in Syracuse, New York. That date marks an anniversary of the fall of Barad-dûr.
Tolkienology is a term used by fans to describe study treating Middle-earth as real ancient history. Fans conduct research from an in-universe perspective ignoring real-world composition history and assume an underlying internally consistent Middle-earth canon.