Today in the history of the American comic strip: May 25

American cartoonists and writers may not have invented the comic strip, but some argue that the comics, as we know them today, are an American creation. Clearly, the United States has played an outsize role in the development of this underappreciated art form.

5.25.1866: Carl E. Schultze, the creator of Foxy Grandpa, is born in Lexington, Kentucky. He launched the strip in 1900. The foxy grandpa of the title always managed to outwit his two mischievous grandsons.

5.25.1950: Almost two years after its debut as a daily strip, Big Ben Bolt adds a Sunday feature The boxing strip, whose title character eventually became a journalist, ran until 1978.

5.25.1940: William Conselman, the co-creator of Ella Cinders (with Charles Plumb), dies in Eagle Rock, California. He was 43. Ella Cinders was a 20th-century Cinderella story that eventually explored other plotlines.

5.25.1963: The science fiction strip Twin Earths, which debuted in 1952, is discontinued. The comic told of another earth, in our earth's orbit but on the opposite side of the sun, populated by an advanced civilization. 

5.25.1981: George Clark, who created The Neighbors and Side Glances, dies. The strips explored middle-class humor.

5.25.1998: The Little Red-Haired Girl, whom Charlie Brown loves, makes her first and only appearance in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, and only in silhouette.
 
5.25.2000: The Pentagon holds a  ceremony celebrating Mort Walker and the upcoming 50th anniversary (in September 2000) of Walker’s creation, Beetle Bailey.
 

5.25.2013: The National Cartoonists Society announces that Brian Basset has won the Newspaper Comic Strip award, for Red and Rover, a comic about a boy and his dog that appears to be set in the 1960s and 1970s.

Red and Rover

Most of the information listed here from one day to the next comes from two online sites -- Wikipedia, and Don Markstein's Toonopedia -- as well as 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics, edited by Maurice Horn. Note that my focus is on American newspaper comic strips (and the occasional foreign strip that gained popularity in the United States). Thus, comic books and exclusively online comics are not included here.