Author Agatha Christie was born on this date in 1890.

Here are a few facts you may not have known about her.

Christie was born in Torquay, England, to a British mother and American father. She was the youngest of three children. She and her siblings grew up believing their mother had psychic powers. She later served as a volunteer nurse during World War I, and then as a pharmacy assistant before writing her first novel “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” in 1920. That first novel also introduced her legendary character Hercule Poirot. She was paid 50 pounds for her second novel “The Secret Adversary.”

During a 1922 trip to Hawaii, Agatha Christie became one of the first Britons to learn to surf standing up. She had earlier learned to surf in the prone position while vacationing in South Africa.

She would go on to write 66 detective novels, 14 short-story collections and six romances. It’s estimated that more than 2 billion copies of her novels have sold, which makes her the best-selling novelist of all-time according to the Guinness Book of World Records. She also wrote the world’s longest-running play “The Mousetrap,” which has run continuously since its 1952 opening.

In 1971, she was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Her husband, Sir Max Mallowan, had been knighted three years earlier for his work in archaeology.

Dame Agatha Christie died in 1976 at the age of 85.

Our question, What country does the character of Hercule Poirot hail from?