Short answers, pulled from the story.
Namecoin was created in September 2010 following a discussion on the BitcoinTalk forum. Gavin Andresen and Satoshi Nakamoto joined this conversation to support the idea of generalizing bitcoin for new uses.
The total supply of Namecoin is capped at exactly 21 million coins. This limit ensures scarcity within the digital ledger similar to its parent chain.
Records automatically expire after 36000 blocks which equates to approximately 200 days of existence before deletion. Owners must update or renew them manually to maintain their presence on the blockchain.
OpenNIC voted to end support for the .bit namespace entirely in July 2019. They cited numerous problems supporting Namecoin domains and recent animosity between the two projects as reasons for the decision.
Michael Gronager discovered a security issue within the protocol in October 2013 while he was the main developer of libcoin. The flaw allowed modifying foreign names on the ledger but was successfully fixed in a short timeframe before exploitation could spread widely.