Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ian Fleming created James Bond, beginning the first novel Casino Royale on the 17th of February 1952 at his Goldeneye estate in Oracabessa, Jamaica. The novel was published in 1953 by Jonathan Cape.
Fleming named the character after the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of Birds of the West Indies. Fleming, a keen birdwatcher, owned a copy of Bond's guide and later told the ornithologist's wife he chose the name because it was "the dullest name I ever heard."
The 27 Bond films, including two non-Eon productions, have grossed over $7.04 billion in total at the box office, making James Bond the fifth-highest-grossing film series to date.
Six actors have played Bond in the Eon series: Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig. Craig is the most recent, appearing in five films from Casino Royale in 2006 through No Time to Die in 2021.
Three Bond theme songs have won Academy Awards for Original Song: Adele's "Skyfall" at the 85th ceremony, Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall" at the 88th, and Billie Eilish's "No Time to Die" at the 94th.
Fleming drew on wartime colleagues including his brother Peter Fleming, Conrad O'Brien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job, Bill Dunderdale, and Dusko Popov. Research following 2020 declassifications by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance also identified Bronislaw Urbanski, a Polish operative introduced to Fleming in 1951, as a physical and operational model for the character.