Agatha Christie is born in Devon, England. She works as a nurse and an apothecary’s assistant during World World I, gaining knowledge about poisons that will prove valuable in crafting in her mysteries.

Initially published under a deeply controversial title, the novel is soon renamed Ten Little Indians, based on the popular nursery rhyme (sometimes called "Ten Little Soldier Boys”). Remarkably, even though the rhyme lays out exactly how all 10 victims will die, the story still builds with both anxiety and surprise.

For its U.S. debut, the title is changed to And Then There Were None, the last line of that rhyme. “It is the most baffling mystery that Agatha Christie has ever written, and if any other writer has ever surpassed it for sheer puzzlement the name escapes our memory,” writes The New York Times Book Review.

A stage adaptation debuts at London’s St. James Theatre, with a script by Christie. While in the book all the characters are killed, in the play, Christie realizes, someone must live to tell the tale. Now, two characters survive, and reunite at the play’s end.

The first movie adaptation premieres, directed by René Clair, using Christie’s 1943 script.

Gumnaam, an unauthorized Bollywood adaptation of And Then There Were None, debuts and is a box office hit. Later, new adaptations for TV and film will be made in Cuba, Germany, France, and Russia.

Christie is made a Dame of the British Empire.

Christie dies. She has written 60 detective novels, 19 short mystery stories, 14 plays, six novels published under a pseudonym, two works of nonfiction, and a book of poetry.

And Then There Were None becomes a video game. The game allows for new plot twists and includes a new character — the player — for more than 20 hours of gameplay.

A board game debuts, with a decidedly 21st-century rewrite: Instead of people being murdered, endangered animal species go extinct.

François Rivière and illustrator Frank Leclercq remake And Then There Were None into a graphic novel.

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A poll names And Then There Were None the world’s favorite Christie novel, followed by Murder on the Orient Express. Some two billion of her books have been sold in the 125 years since her birth. That makes her books the world’s third best selling, her estate says, behind only the Bible and Shakespeare.