"Soaps" have been around since the 1930s when Proctor & Gamble produced 15-minute episodes of love and drama for radio. Allegedly, the term "soap opera" was coined because these shows were sponsored by a company that made cleansers.

By the early 1950s, soap operas had switched over to television, and daytime TV had no shortage of offerings. As you'll see, captivating story lines and characters are the keys to longevity on daytime television. If you're curious about the shortest-running soap, it was NBC's These Are My Children, which lasted only 24 days in 1949.

The hour glass is symbolic with the long-running Days of Our Lives.

1. (The) Guiding Light (1952-????)

Not only is Guiding Light the longest-
running soap, at more than 15,000 episodes (and still going), it is also the longest-running non-news program in U.S. television history. Like many of the oldest soaps, Guiding Light began in 1937 as a radio program before making the transition to television on June 30, 1952. Originally, the soap took place in the fictional town of Five Points, then Selby Flats, and revolved around the Bauer family. Now, it's the Spauldings, Coopers, and Lewises who are in the limelight.

During the 1960s, "The" was dropped from the show's title to make it sound more contemporary. One of the show's more bizarre story lines involved cloning longtime character Reva Lewis from one of her own frozen eggs! Once the clone was born, she was given aging serum so that she would grow up fast. But she was evil and attempted to take Reva's place.

2. As the World Turns (1956-????)

Set in Oakdale, a fictional Midwestern town, As the World Turns has been immensely popular since it debuted on April 2, 1956. The show is more reality-based than other soaps, but people do come back from the dead and children grow up far faster than in real life, as is the norm for the soap world.

The first soap opera to use a two-family setup, As the World Turns pitted a middle-class family against a wealthy, but troubled, family. The Hughes family remains as the middle-class hero, but the wealthy family that was originally the Lowells is now the Munsons. After more than 13,000 episodes, the world is still turning, and this soap is still going strong.

Find more of TV's longest-running daytime soap operas on the next page.