General Hospital
American television soap opera
General Hospital (often abbreviated as GH) is an American daytime television soap opera created by Frank and Doris Hursley which has been broadcast on ABC since April 1, 1963. Originally a half-hour serial, its running time was expanded from 30 minutes to 45 minutes on July 26, 1976, and again to a full hour on January 16, 1978.
Set in a hospital in the city of Port Charles, New York, General Hospital originally starred John Beradino and Emily McLaughlin; both actors stayed with the show until their deaths in 1996 and 1991, respectively. They were joined a year later by Rachel Ames who made her most recent appearance in 2015. The show is taped at the Prospect Studios in Los Angeles, California. General Hospital was the second soap to air on ABC after the short-lived Road to Reality (1960–1961). In 1964, a sister soap was created for General Hospital, The Young Marrieds; it ran for two years and was canceled because of low ratings. General Hospital also spawned the daytime series Port Charles (1997–2003) and the primetime spin-off General Hospital: Night Shift (2007–2008).
In the late 1970s, storylines began to shift focus around the Spencer and Quartermaine families. From 1979 to 1988, General Hospital had more viewers than any other daytime soap opera.
“General Hospital” enters the record as american television soap opera. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what General, Hospital and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“General Hospital” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, General, Hospital and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1136370. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1976, 1978 and 1996.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “General Hospital” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.