It’s the birthday of J.K. Rowling (b. 1965), author of the Harry Potter series, the bestselling book series in history. Rowling was the first author ever to become a billionaire but eventually fell off the billionaire list after giving huge buttery handfuls of money to charity.

Joanne Rowling was born in Yate in the unpronounceable county of Gloucestershire in England to a father who was an aircraft engineer and a mother who was a science technician. (Also unpronounceable: Worcestershire sauce. I almost don’t like having it in the fridge.) Rowling read voraciously and wanted to be a writer from the start. She studied French and Classics at Exeter University—learning Latin that would come in handy for her Harry Potter spells—and then held various jobs in London, including doing research at Amnesty International.

Rowling thought up the idea for Harry Potter in 1990 while waiting on a train; she spent five years taking copious notes to map out the entire series. In the meantime, she moved to Portugal, got married and had a child, got divorced, and returned to England with her daughter. She began teaching in the relatively pronounceable Edinburgh but also finished the first Harry Potter manuscript, which was published in 1997 as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the UK. Rowling published under the name “J.K. Rowling” at her publisher’s request to disguise the fact that a female author was writing for a male target audience.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone had an initial print run of just 500 to 1,000 copies (depending on your source), and Rowling was advised to keep her day job, since there was no money in children’s books. But the book began winning awards, and then U.S. rights were won at auction by Scholastic for $105,000. Six books later, the last novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, sold 11 million copies in its first day, becoming the fastest selling book in history.

Oh: and there are movies.

Today’s Harry Potter smackdown: I told my son, a passionate HP fan, “Hey, it’s J.K. ROWLing’s birthday!” to which he responded, “No, mom. J.K. ROLLing. Get it right.”

Sheesh. Parents are so dumb.

Have a lovely remaining few minutes of this last day of July and stay scrupulously honest to the data.