Siddhartha Gautama

Born: circa 623 BC in Kapilavastu (in modern-day Nepal)
Died: circa 543 BC in Kushinagar (in northern India)
Father: King Suddhodana
Mother: Queen Maya 

Wife: Princess Yasodharā
Son: Rahula 

Ethnicity: Northern Indian (of the Shakya clan)
Job: Monk and teacher 

Because the first written record wasn't created for more than a century after Sidhatha's death creating a biography is difficult. What we can conclude with some probability the following paragraphs are fairly accurate. 

He was born in the northern Indian sub-Continent in the city of Kapilavastu in what is now Nepal.

He would have grown up as a Hindu and accepted dogmas such a reincarnation, Pantheism and the caste system.

Growing up as a prince he felt disconnected from the suffering of the world and realizing this was a significant time in his life.

He spent hours obsessively meditating and that after some time of this he begin to claim he reached something called "enlightenment" which refers to a state of being passionless.

Siddhatha's most influential ideas related to his experience of passionlessness. He said that after we are born we will suffer and die, then he said we will be reborn and then suffer and die all over again. The cycle of reincarnation was therefore evil and had to escaped from. Siddhatha denied the idea that you could simply accumulate enough karma to escape it, instead he taught the following which Buddhists call "the four noble truths"

1.) The cycle of reincarnation involves suffering.

2.) There is a cause to this suffering.

3.) There is a way out of the cycle of suffering.

4.) The way out is to follow the eight-fold path which helps on become a being without passion and thus, according to Buddhism, enlightened.

After death he taught you would no longer be reincarnated but transcend the cycle if you had become 'enlightened'. There is no evidence to suggests he ever questioned whether or not the idea of reincarnation was actually a metaphysical reality.

It is said that he was 29 when he reached 'enlightenment and late traditions claim that the man died at age 80, ' He is said to have had only one son who was utterly devoted to his father's way of life.

He was given the title "Buddha" which means "enlightened one", which is why he is commonly known as "the Buddha." But some consider this to be a bias title.

Timeline:

Circa 623 BC: Siddhatha is born

Circa 594 BC: Siddhatha claims to have reached 'enlightenment' and propagates his ideas.

Circa 543 BC: Siddhatha dies over fifty miles south-east of where he was born.

Sources:

Overall concepts in Buddhist traditions