Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Voyager program began in 1972 as a scaled-down mission derived from the Mariner series after the full Planetary Grand Tour was canceled in December 1971. The original plan proposed multiple pairs of probes to explore the outer solar system but was reduced to two identical spacecraft to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment.
Voyager 2 launched first on the 20th of August 1977, followed by Voyager 1 on the 5th of September 1977. These launch dates allowed the probes to utilize gravity-assist techniques to visit Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause on the 25th of August 2012, becoming the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space. Voyager 2 followed suit and crossed the heliopause on the 5th of November 2018, making it the second spacecraft to enter interstellar space.
The contents of the Voyager Golden Record were selected by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan, who was a prominent astronomer and science communicator. The committee included Timothy Ferris and selected greetings in 55 languages, music, and natural sounds to represent Earth.
Voyager 1 took the Pale Blue Dot photograph on the 14th of February 1990 from a distance of approximately 6 billion kilometers. The image shows Earth as a tiny speck of light in the vastness of space and was part of the Family Portrait series of images of the solar system.
The Voyager spacecraft are equipped with custom-built computers that have been running continuously since the 20th of August 1977. These systems make them the longest-running computers in history and include the Computer Command System and the Attitude and Articulation Control System.