General Hospital has aired on ABC since April 1, 1963 — the longest-running American soap opera still in production, and one of the longest-running scripted programs in the world (the show's documented history). Here is the 60-plus-year story in brief: the origins, the golden eras, and why Port Charles is still winning in 2026.

The origins and the golden eras

Launched in 1963 as a half-hour medical drama, GH spent its first two decades as a solid institutional performer — then became a cultural phenomenon in the early 1980s, when the Luke and Laura era turned a daytime wedding into a national event. The show's modern era arrived in the 1990s with the mob-architecture rebuild: the Sonny Corinthos organization gave the canvas a new power economy (our Sonny explainer covers the character at its center), and Port Charles became a three-world town — mob, medicine, espionage — which is why its weddings and wars carry more detonators than any other soap's.

The 2020s: the veteran that keeps winning

The current era's evidence is concrete. GH won Outstanding Daytime Drama Series at the 2025 Daytime Emmys with seven wins on the night, leading the field (TV Insider's winners list), (Gold Derby's analysis). And the ratings followed: multi-month highs in the key female demographics, crossing 2 million total viewers in the 2026 ratings picture. The show's casting pipeline stays active too — the 2026 comings-and-goings ledger documents a year of newcomers, a surprise recast, and next-generation arcs (our casting breakdown). Sixty-plus years in, the institution is not coasting; it is investing.