On this day in 1961, beloved sitcom I Love Lucy airs its last episode. The show, created by Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, ran for 10 years. Ball, a former Hollywood starlet and radio actress, had insisted that Arnaz be cast as her husband on I Love Lucy despite the fact that network executives insisted no one would believe a white American actress would be married to a Cuban bandleader. Desi and Lucy filmed a pilot before a live audience to convince network executives that audiences responded well to their act, and CBS agreed to cast Desi for the show.

I Love Lucy became one of the most popular TV sitcoms in history, ranking in the top three shows for six years and turning the couple’s production company, Desilu, into a multimillion-dollar business. Ball became president of the company in 1960 after she and Desi divorced. She also starred in several other “Lucy” shows, including The Lucy Show, which debuted in 1962 and ran for six seasons, and Here’s Lucy, in which she starred with her two children until the show was cancelled in 1974. A later show, Life with Lucy, featuring Lucy as a grandmother, was cancelled after only eight episodes. Ball died in 1989 and Arnaz died in 1986.