On October 2nd, 1950, the first Peanuts comic strip was drawn and released by creator Charles M. Schulz. The strip ran as a daily comic strup for a little over a year, until it became a Sunday comic strip on January 6th, 1952. Charles Schulz illustrated the "Peanuts" until just before his death in 2000. The comic strip is often considered the most popular and influential comic strip in history, with 17,897 strips published in all. At the time of Schulz's death in 2000, "Peanuts" ran in over 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries and 21 languages, reaching a readership of roughly 355 million, and earned Schulz more than $1 billion. After his death in 2000, "Peanuts" ran as reruns in the Sunday papers, and still does to this day.
