Days of our Lives, explained — the complete guide to the show that premiered on November 8, 1965 and has aired nearly every weekday since: the history, the five families that drive Salem, the sand-through-the-hourglass tradition, and how the soap survived every industry change to reach its Peacock era. Written for new viewers and returning ones alike.

The origins: 1965 and the birth of Salem

Days of our Lives premiered on November 8, 1965, following the lives of the Horton family in the fictional town of Salem, Illinois — and has aired nearly every weekday since, making it one of the longest-running scripted television programs in the world (the show's documented history). Created at the height of daytime's expansion, the show built its identity on two durable inventions: the Horton family as the canvas's moral center, and an hourglass-and-theme-song opening that became one of television's most recognizable signatures. Six decades later, both still open every episode.

The five families: Salem's operating system

The show's official framing describes its canvas as the intertwined stories of five families (Peacock's official show page):

  • The Hortons — the moral center, keepers of the Christmas-ornament tradition and the show's longest continuity.
  • The Bradys — the Irish-rooted clan whose pub is Salem's town square.
  • The Kiriakises — the Greek shipping dynasty, power and money with old-world loyalty codes.
  • The Hernandezes — the newer family whose law-enforcement and medical members give Salem its civic spine.
  • The DiMeras — the gothic empire, source of the show's most operatic villainy and its longest feuds.

Every current storyline — the return arc shaking two marriages, the 2026 romance wave with EJ and Cat at its flagship — is some combination of these five families colliding. That is the show's genius: with five institutions and sixty years of shared history, new stories generate themselves.

Surviving everything: the NBC years to the Peacock era

Salem outlived nearly everything television threw at it. The show navigated the genre's great contraction — the era when daytime's soap lineup shrank from more than a dozen programs to just four (the genre's ratings-era record) — and then made the industry's boldest late-era move: in 2022, Days left broadcast NBC to stream exclusively on Peacock, with new episodes dropping weekday mornings. The gamble paid off: Peacock renewed the show through Season 63, into the 2027–28 season (the renewal announcement), (Soap Opera Network's coverage) — making the oldest show in the lineup the first to commit that far into the streaming era.

The current era's health check: the show's 2026 casting churn — four exits and a wave of returns — is the rotation of a healthy institution, and its story engine is running hot across the week-ahead Salem shockwave guide. And the genre around it is rising: B&B leads the key female demographic, Y&R posted a season high, and GH crossed 2 million viewers in the 2026 ratings picture — a tide Days helped create and still rides.