All My Children (AMC) is a popular American soap opera that has been broadcast Monday through Friday on the ABC TV network since January 5 1970. AMC was created by Agnes Nixon. Nixon had created One Life to Live for ABC following her success as head writer for Another World and The Guiding Light. She set the show in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a small fictitious suburb of Philadelphia.

The title of the show refers to the brotherhood of man. Nixon believed that it doesn't matter who one was, what one looked like, or where one was from — for every human being was a child of God. The poem at the start of the All My Children photo album reads:

The poem, which epitomizes the goal of All My Children ' s storytelling, was penned by Nixon herself.

The show was originally owned by Creative Horizons, Inc., the company created by Agnes Nixon and her husband Bob. The show was sold to ABC in January 1975.

Originally a half-hour in length, the show expanded to an hour in April 1977. Previously, the show had experimented with the hour format for one week starting on July 7 1975, when Ryan's Hope premiered.

From 1970-1990, it was recorded at ABC's now defunct studio TV18 at 101 West 66th St.

Since March 1990, it has been recorded at ABC's television studio TV23 on 320 West 66th Street in New York City.

On July 25 2006, the show began using a post-production process called FilmLook, which gives it a filmed (as opposed to taped) appearance.

At one time, the program was so popular that it was the most widely-recorded television show in the United States, and once had an audience that was estimated to be 30% male. The show ranked #1 in the daytime Nielsen Ratings from 1978-1979. Throughout most of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, All My Children was the #2 daytime soap opera on the air.

With the death of core cast member Ruth Warrick in January 2005, two original cast members, Ray MacDonnell and Susan Lucci, remain.

Kinescopes of the series' early episodes no longer exist, but videotaped episodes are still archived.

In April 1995, the show was setting up a storyline in which one of the characters was planning on setting a bomb at the wedding of two other characters. When the Oklahoma City bombing occurred, producers immediately cancelled the storyline, and appeared at the beginning of one of the episodes to explain their choice.

In 1978 the show became the first US soap opera to take its cameras outside the United States when they showed the honeymoon of Tom and Erica on the island of Saint Croix.

Erica Kane's secretary "Val" is named after Val Reichenbach, Susan Lucci's former hair dresser.

As of 2006, only two actors from the original cast remain on the show. The two actors are Susan Lucci, who plays Erica Kane, and Ray MacDonnell, who plays hospital chief of staff Joe Martin.