As The World Turns Airs Final Episode

The charming, many-times-divorced CBS soap opera As the World Turns finished up on Friday after 54 seasons. Over the years, a slew of now-famous actors appeared on the series, including Meg Ryan, Julianne Moore, Steven Weber, and Marisa Tomei. The show, set in a fictional Midwestern town, also made many TV milestones—in a 1988 episode, for example, it became the first daytime series to introduce a gay male character and 19 years later, it became the first daytime soap with a male-on-male kiss. After 14,000 episodes, the series is finally saying goodbye.