Most Important Dates in Disney History
Walt Disney World is currently building to its most significant milestone ever, its 50th anniversary.
On October 1st, we’ll celebrate Walt Disney’s vision for a theme park he tragically wouldn’t live to see.
The bittersweet thought of this triggered a bit of reminiscing and a curious question.
What are the other most important dates in Disney history? Let’s take a look at the ones from the 20th century…
October 16th, 1923
On this date nearly 100 years ago, Walt and Roy Disney went into business for themselves.
The entrepreneurs had just learned the hard way that only suckers don’t own their own intellectual property.
Along with Ub Iwerks and Charles Mintz, Uncle Walt had created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for Universal Pictures, which soon took complete control and fired Disney.
On October 16th, 1923, the Disney brothers founded the business you know and love, The Walt Disney Company.
November 18th, 1928
Once Disney lost all control and access to Oswald, he settled on a new animated character, one who would make an immediate impact on pop culture.
On November 18th, 1928, Mickey Mouse appeared for the first time. He starred in Steamboat Willie and quickly became a global sensation.
Over the next few years, many unforgettable Disney characters similarly debuted. However, Mickey Mouse’s birthday still stands out as the seminal moment in company history.
February 4th, 1938
Of course, Steamboat Willie represented merely the first step on the way to Disney’s animation domination.
In 1938, Walt Disney unveiled his crown jewel, the first full-length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
How much did people enjoy it? Well…
February 23rd, 1939
Roughly a year later, Walt Disney dominated the Academy Awards even though he only won once.
Film fans campaigned for Snow White and Disney at the 11th annual awards. But, unfortunately, Hollywood wasn’t ready to laud an animated movie yet.
Instead, Disney claimed four out of five (!) spots in Cartoon, Best Short Subject, winning with Ferdinand the Bull.
Everyone knew that wasn’t enough, though. So, the Academy honored Walt Disney for:
“creating Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon.”
The Academy awarded Disney one statuette and seven miniatures to reflect Snow White and her friends, the Dwarfs.
This moment proved integral to the perception of Disney as a film studio rather than just a place for animation.
July 29th, 1950
In fact, Disney carried that momentum into 1950. After a decade of animated triumphs, the company tried something new.
Disney released Treasure Island on July 29th, 1950. It immediately became the first live-action full-length feature in company history.
Amusingly, Disney later rebooted this movie in reverse. While many animated classics become live-action remarks, Treasure Island went the other way.
In 2002, Disney released Treasure Planet, an animated movie inspired by Treasure Island.
July 17th, 1955
Oh, come on! You should know this one! It’s the date when Disneyland opened to the public.
Television estimates of the era suggest that 90 million viewers watched in envy as thousands of guests visited the Happiest Place on Earth for the first time.
At the time, the American population hovered around 166 million. So, that’s more than half of all Americans watching Disneyland’s grand opening!
April 22nd, 1964
The 1964 New York World’s Fair proved something else about Disney.
When the company dominated this event with its four pavilions, it demonstrated that its Imagineers could create the impossible.
The Ford, Pepsi-Cola, Illinois, and General Electric attractions all wowed observers to the point that Disney owns a unique Wikipedia entry on this page.
October 25th, 1965
This date’s a messy but funny moment in Disney history.
Emily Bavar, someone that headlines later described as a “girl reporter,” claimed the scoop of a lifetime when she learned about a Florida land grab.
Disney wasn’t ready to confirm yet, so it asked the Governor of Florida (!) to do so on the company’s behalf. Then…
November 15th, 1965
Walt Disney held to his previously planned date of November 15th to formally announce the Florida Project.
The entrepreneur confirmed that he had purchased thousands of acres of land on the sly and intended to build an East Coast version of Disneyland there.
The following year, just before his death, Uncle Walt filmed this video to declare his intentions for the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow:
October 1st, 1982
Obviously, you know about October 1st, 1971. However, the 11th anniversary of Walt Disney World came with a pleasant bonus.
EPCOT Center opened to the public on this date. Alas, it wasn’t the utopian community that Walt Disney had envisioned. His death ruined any chance of that.
Still, EPCOT embodied the best of Disney at the time, especially its architectural wonder, Spaceship Earth.
Plus, the World Showcase checked off the box that mattered to Walt. It worked as a daily World’s Fair, just like the one in 1964.
April 15th, 1983
Okay, you may not know this date, but it’s one of the most significant ever.
On April 15th, 1983, Tokyo Disneyland opened to the general public.
For the first time ever, Disney licensed the name of its theme parks to a different organization, the Oriental Land Company (OLC).
To its credit, OLC has maintained Tokyo Disneyland so well that many consider it THE best theme park on the planet.
Moreover, Disney proved for the first time that its theme parks would sell just as well overseas as in California and Florida.
July 30th, 1995
Here’s the one that matters the most to the bottom line, at least out of the past 40 years.
In 1995, Michael Eisner set up a merger of Capital Cities/ABC Inc. This $19 billion merger established Disney as a media powerhouse.
In a way, this acquisition mirrors the recent Fox purchase, as it positioned Disney to dominate the cable industry.
Back then, that medium comprised the totality of media consumption. With Fox, Disney leveraged those assets for Disney+, thereby taking a foothold in the streaming landscape.
Anyone who studies Disney’s financial documents knows that movies and theme parks get most of the hype.
However, it’s the cable and broadcast network advertising revenue that has elevated Disney into a Fortune 50 business.
April 22nd, 1998
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include one more theme park. I left out Disney’s Hollywood Studios since it was kind of a mess at first.
Really, the same statement applies to some elements of Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
Even so, when this park opened on Earth Day in 1998, it brought Disney’s theme park empire full circle.
While planning Disneyland, Walt Disney had insisted on live animals at Jungle Cruise. Obviously, that never happened, though.
More than 40 years later, Joe Rohde led a team of gifted Imagineers and several recently poached zoologists to build a combined theme park and zoo.
Out of the many Imagineering achievements after Walt Disney’s death, I don’t believe that any others would have impressed him as much as Animal Kingdom.
Well, I should say any others from the 20th century. In part two, we’ll evaluate the most important dates in Disney’s recent history.
I suspect Pandora – The World of Avatar would have pleased Uncle Walt, too.