Today is the birthday of Arthur Conan Doyle (b. 1859)

supplied information from "Writer's Almanac" (Garrison Keillor list serv from Minnesota Public Radio)

It is the birthday of the man who created Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland (1859). He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, served as a ship's doctor, and later started his own medical practice. He wrote in his spare time and based the character of Sherlock on a doctor he met in medical school, who took copious notes on his patients' backgrounds. The first Holmes story appeared in 1887. He went on to write 56 more Sherlock Holmes stories and four novels.