The syndicated daily and Sunday comic strip Peanuts was written and illustrated
by Charles M. Schulz and ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000,
continuing in reruns afterward. The strip is the most popular and influential in
the history of comic strips, with 17,897 strips published in all, making it "arguably
the longest story ever told by one human being". At its peak, Peanuts ran in over
2,600 newspapers, with a readership of 355 million in 75 countries, and was
translated into 21 languages. It helped to make the four-panel gag strip as the
standard in the United States, and together with its merchandise earned Schulz
more than $1 billion. Reprints of the strip are still syndicated and run in almost
every U.S. newspaper.

Charles Monroe Schulz (November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000)