An inside look at how 'Daily Show' host Jon Stewart went from unknown stand-up to America's favorite fake newscaster

Tonight, Jon Stewart will host his final episode of "The Daily Show." He's been at the show's helm for 16 years, from the end of the Clinton years to the close of the Obama era.

In that time, he's established himself as a national icon, taking to the air every night at 11 p.m. to, as New Yorker editor David Remnick put it, "expose our civic bizarreries." 

In honor of the end of his Emmy-winning tenure - though not, he reminds us, his actual end ("Guys, let me make something clear," he reminded his audience at a recent taping, The Week reports. "I'm not dying.") - we looked back on the incredible and winding career of the legendary comedian.