Daoism and Taoism questions?

I need to know when the religion began, where it began, if its monotheistic or polytheistic, important people, text to live by, How it started, and its basic beliefs!!! Please Help me this is for an assignment

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The Way that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not true.
The Way manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.

To experience without intention is to sense the world;
To experience with intention is to anticipate the world.
These two experiences are indistinguishable;
Their construction differs but their effect is the same.

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,
Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.

Tao (or Dao) began in China--the word translates simply to "the Way."

Lao-Ste (pronounced LAOdsuh) was the philosopher who compiled the "Tao De Ching" or the Tao Virtue Book, outlining the idea that the earth was a reflection of Heaven and run by the same heavenly laws--NOT by the laws of man.

Unhappiness, he felt, occurred when men meddled with the natural order of things. They more men tried to force their will upon the world, the farther away harmony retreated. Happiness and harmony and tranquility could be restored by bringing ones actions back in line with the natural order of things. "Tao" referred to "The Way of the Universe." It can't be explained in words--and to try would be insulting to its limitless power--but it can be understood.

While there are English translations of the "Tao De Ching," for a clear and concise picture of the basic philosophy I recommend "the Tao of Pooh." It's a very short book that uses A. A. Milne's famous "bear of very little brain" to illustrate how Tao works.

It's important to note that Tao is not a religion, as such, though it did begin in polytheistic China, and there are monastic traditions of Tao. It's a philosophy, a way of looking at the world, and it works quite well with almost any religion that does not directly contradict it.