(AGI) Rome, Oct. 1 - Friday marks the 65th anniversary of the"Peanuts" comic strip with Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Linus. Thecomic strip made by Charles Monroe Schultz made its debut inseven newspapers on Oct. 2, 1950: The Washington Post, TheChicago Tribune, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The AllentownCall-Chronicle, The Bethlehem Globe-Times, The Denver Post andThe Seattle Times. It continued to be published until Feb. 13,2000, a day after Schultz died. When Schulz announced hisretirement in December 1999, Peanuts was syndicated in morethan 2,600 newspapers worldwide. It had over 355 millionreaders in 75 countries and was translated in 21 languages. InItaly it is still published by the monthly Linus and the dailyIl Post. Peanuts was probably the most successful comic stripbetween 1965 and 1980. At first, the main characters wereCharlie Brown, Shermy, Patty and Snoopy. Over the years Shermyand Patty appeared less often and new characters made an entry:Schroeder, Lucy van Pelt and her brother Linus entered thescene as young children. The Peanuts do not grow old, or veryslowly. Only babies reach an age similar to that of others in afew months. The whole group of characters can be divided intothree generations: Charlie Brown and his peers (Lucy, Shermy,Violet, Schroeder) are drawn as the third-graders, theirbrothers and younger sisters (Linus, Sally, Frieda, Eudora) areabout a year younger. The younger brother of Linus and Lucy,Replica, debuted as a newborn and has reached kindergarten age.The daily Peanuts strips were published in "space-saving"format of four lines since the fifties, with eight lines inrare occasions. In 1975, the horizontal space was slightlyshortened and in 1988 Schulz started to use the entire lengthof the strip, in part to combat the continuous reductions ofspace, in part to experiment. Schulz drew the strip for 50years without interruption and without using assistants. In theearly eighties his drawings began to show a certain tremor,which became more visible in the next decade. Nevertheless, hecontinued to draw until his health problems becameinsurmountable. Schultz made his last strip on Jan. 3, 2000. Itwas published the day after Schulz's death on Feb. 12 of thatyear. Many U.S. newspapers have begun to republish the oldstrips under the title Classic Peanuts, in line with the lastwishes of Schulz not to continue the series after his death.. .