Walt Disney

  • Birth Of Walt Disney

    Birth Of Walt Disney
    Walt Disney was born in Hermosa, Chicago, Illionis to Flora Call Disney(mother), and Elias Disney(father). He was one of five children.
  • Moves To Kansas City and gets his first job as a paper boy

    Moves To Kansas City and gets his first job as a paper boy
    Moves To Kansas City, because his father is sick and can no longer work the farm land. Walt gets up at 3:30am everyday to deliver papers, to help out with family expenses.
  • Moves to Chicago

    Moves to Chicago
  • Walt joins the army

    Walt joins the army
    Walt Disney is too young to enlist in the armed service, but he alters his birth date on an application form so he can join the American Red Cross Ambulance Corps as a 17-year-old
  • Walt gets his first job in design

    Walt gets his first job in design
    Walt Disney takes a job at Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio in Kansas City, MO, illustrating advertisements and catalogs, for $50 a month.
  • First short movie airs

    First short movie airs
    Walt Disney's first Laugh-O-grams film reel premieres at the Newman Theatre in Kansas City, MO. The three and a half minute short (a brief movie shown before a feature film)
  • Disney Brothers is created

    Disney Brothers is created
    Walt and Roy Disney establish the Disney Brothers Studios at an office on Kingswell Avenue in Los Angeles, with Ub Iwerks later joining the staff as an animator. Walt's role is more creative while Roy handles the business side.
  • Marries Lillian Bounds

    Marries Lillian Bounds
    Lillian Bounds, one of the first ink and paint artists at Disney Brothers Studios, marries Walt Disney. "He just had no inhibitions," Lillian later said about Walt. "He was completely natural. He was fun."
  • Mickey mouse is born

    Mickey mouse is born
    Seeks a way to reinvent the studio. After dozens of brainstorming sessions, they come up with a new character: a mouse named Mortimer. Eventually, they change the name to Mickey.
  • Wins first academy in Short animated films

    Wins first academy in Short animated films
    The first cartoon produced using the new three-strip Technicolor process. Walt Disney will go on to win his first Academy Award® for Flowers and Trees in the new Animated Short Film category.
  • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

    Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
    The film receives a standing ovation and earns rave reviews, and the film grosses more than $8 million internationally. It`s the first full length animated film ever made.
  • Walt Disney Productions goes public

    Walt Disney Productions goes public
    Walt Disney Productions goes public, issuing 155,000 shares of preferred stock and netting the company $3,875,000.
  • Meets with goverment to make propaganda films

    Meets with goverment to make propaganda films
    Walt Disney holds a conference for government officials and private defense firms, and announces his willingness to aid propaganda campaigns by making animated instructional films for the Allied war effort during WWII.
  • Cinderella debuts

    Cinderella debuts
    Cinderella debuts, meeting critical acclaim and grossing $7.9 million.
  • Concept of DIsneyland made

    Concept of DIsneyland made
    Walt Disney liquidates long-held family assets, borrows against his life insurance policy, and sells the rights to his own name to Walt Disney Productions to form WED Enterprises. In an effort to fund his new idea Disneyland.
  • Construction of amusment parks begins

    Construction of amusment parks begins
    Walt Disney Studios publicly announces the construction of a new amusement park called Disneyland. Much of the funding for the park will come from a deal with the third-place television network ABC.
  • Disneyland premieres on ABC

    Disneyland premieres on ABC
    Walt Disney's television program, Disneyland premieres on ABC. Walt Disney hosts the hour-long show, which features updates on the construction of Disneyland, edited versions of animated features, and live-action films.
  • Reputation continues to grow

     Reputation continues to grow
    He is appointed chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee for the Pageantry Committee for the Winter Olympics. Eisenhower names him to the President’s Committee on Education. The New York Museum of Modern Art dedicates an exhibit to Disney animation.
  • 1964 New York World’s Fair

     1964 New York World’s Fair
    WED Enterprises’ debuts four main exhibits. G.E.’s Carousel of Progress, the Ford Motor Company’s Magic Skyway, Pepsi-Cola’s it’s a small world, and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln for the State of Illinois. Each of them uses robotics.
  • Diagnosed with Cancer

    Diagnosed with Cancer
    Doctors discover walnut sized tumor. He is given between 6 months to two years to live. Is told to quit smoking. Walt Disney’s son-in-law said Disney told him, "You know, it’s one of these things. I’ve smoked all my life, and I’ve seen people who have smoked all their life and they didn’t have lung cancer. I thought it would never happen to me. And it happened."
  • New theme park in Florida

    New theme park in Florida
    He wants to build an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) to establish a sustainable, self-sufficient community within the Florida theme park that will be an ideal model for a utopian future America.
  • A great man`s life ends

    A great man`s life ends
    Walt Disney dies at 9:35 a.m. from a cardiac arrest. He had checked himself in to St. Joseph’s Hospital on November 30, directly across the street from his studio in Burbank.