On this day in 1953, episode #56, “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” of hit 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy airs for the first time. The episode, in which Lucy Ricardo, famously played by Lucille Ball, gives birth to a son, was one of the most popular in television history. The ground-breaking episode was one of the first American television programs to deal with the issue of sex, a taboo subject in conservative 1950s America, when even married couples were not shown on television sharing the same bed. Forty-four million viewers, a full 72 percent of all U.S. homes with a television, tuned in; only 29 million viewers had watched President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s televised inauguration the previous night.

I Love Lucy debuted in 1951 on CBS and quickly became the most popular show on television. It remained at the top of the ratings for four of its six years on TV and remains in syndication even fifty years after its final episode aired. The half-hour sitcom, which starred real-life husband and wife Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, revolved around the hilarious antics of Lucy, a frustrated housewife who yearned for a more interesting career outside her house, and her long-suffering orchestra-leader husband, Ricky Ricardo, who believed that a woman’s place was in the home.

Prior to I Love Lucy, Ball had performed in a radio sitcom called My Favorite Husband. When CBS proposed that she begin a television show, she agreed, with the caveat that her real-life husband, Arnaz, co-star. CBS was initially reluctant, fearful the public would not respond well to an interracial couple and Arnaz’s Cuban accent, but Ball was adamant, even touring in a nightclub act with Arnaz to prove the idea’s viability. Further, the couple’s production company, Desilu, won the rights to produce the show and negotiated 100 percent ownership, which, with the show’s quick success, made Ball and Arnaz television’s first millionaires.

Most I Love Lucy episodes were written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, Jr.; Oppenheimer also produced the series for most of its run, with Arnaz as executive producer. After nearly 180 episodes and four Emmy® Awards, in addition to 16 other nominations, the final premiere episode of I Love Lucy aired in May 1957.