'Days of Our Lives' Commemorates 50 Years by Becoming Part of the Smithsonian

NBC's iconic soap opera, Days of Our Lives, is celebrating its golden anniversary!

The popular and often edgy soap holds the record for being NBC's longest-running scripted daytime drama, and now it'll have a few choice items at the Smithsonian, including that iconic hourglass.

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"I applaud the Smithsonian for realizing that daytime television is a great part of American culture," said David Michaels, Senior Vice President, Daytime Emmy Awards & Events at the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Today, Days is just one of four remaining soaps on the air, but it continues to claim millions of viewers in more than 25 countries every weekday. Fans seem drawn to the escape from reality and a sense of kinship they feel with the characters and their exotic stories.

Susan Seaforth Hayes, 72, is the only actress to have appeared on all six decades of the show's production and she noted that the public has consumed thousands of hours following her character's every move.

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"No show lasts forever," she told ET. "No job lasts forever, and yet we have been given a half century with the American public."

Days has been renewed through September 2016.