Charles M. Schulz

Charles Monroe Schulz grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota, drawing compulsively before being conscripted into the Army in 1943 and serving through the final years of World War II. Back home, he launched Li'l Folks in 1947, a strip he reworked and submitted to United Features Syndicate in 1950—they renamed it Peanuts and began running it that October. He moved his family to Northern California in 1958 and kept the strip going without interruption, later helping write A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965 and the animated specials and films that followed. He drew Peanuts himself until he died in Februa…