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Walt Disney was born in Chicago to parents Elias and Flora. His given name was Walter Elias Disney.
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In 1906, when Walt was four, Elias and his family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri where his elder brother Roy had recently purchased farmland.[14] In Marceline, Disney developed his love for drawing with one of the family's neighbors, a retired doctor named "Doc" Sherwood,
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The Disney family moved to a farm when Walt was very young. He spent lots of his time drawing and imagining, but when his father became ill they had to sell the farm and move to Kansas City, Mo.
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While living in Missouri, Walt got a paper route to help the family's financial situation. It was while working this job he first discovered movies, and he fell in love with them.
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After high school, Walt continued drawing, and when his family returned to Chicago he enrolled in the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. It was his dream to work as a newspaper cartoonist.
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Though he was too young to join the army, Walt lied about his age in order to enlist. He fought in France for a year in the American Ambulance Corps.
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Walt joined forces with Ub Iwerks and formed a commercial artist company. However, the company failed after only a month.Walt & Ub work for the Kansas City Slide Company.
Walt names the films "Laugh-O-grams." -
Walt moves to Hollywood planning to become a director. Roy (Walt's brother) was already in California.He eventually founded Disney Brothers Studio in Hollywood, which would later become Hyperion Studio.
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The first of the new Alice Comedies was Alice's Day at Sea, delivered on December 26, 1923, and the Disney Brothers studio received their first earnings of $1,500. The new series Alice Comedies proved reasonably successful.
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Disney hired a young woman named Lillian Bounds to ink and paint at his studia. After a brief time, the pair married that same year on July 25, 1925
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At the height of the talking-picture revolution, Walt created a film called Steamboat Willie. It featured a talking mouse named Mickey, and it was an instant hit.
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Walt, along with his brother Roy, decided to play up Mickey's growing popularity. They created a merchandise line and the Mickey Mouse Club, which quickly grew to over one million members.
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Lillian gives birth to Diane Marie Disney. Their first child.
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"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is seen by the public in Los Angeles. It makes a 3 week run at Radio City Music Hall, then some New York theaters."Snow White" grosses $8 million and wins an Academy Award.
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After Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney released multiple films including Fantasia, Pinocchio, and Dumbo. When WWII began, the US Army took over part of the studio to house troops, but Disney still managed to produce Bambi.
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Disney released Cinderella, and it was an instant hit. It was their biggest success since the release of Snow White.
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Disney's first "Adventures in Music" animated film, "Melody" is released. The film was made in 3-D, the first such film to be released in the US.
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Plans for Disneyland park and tv show are announced. Walt states that the tv series would begin in October, 1954 and the park would open in July, 1955
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Walt purchased land in Florida to build a theme park called Epcot, which would be a peek into the technology of "tomorrow." It was an idea that eventually grew into Disney World.
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At the age of 66, Walt Disney died of lung cancer on December 15, 1966. In the same year, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree released, and Walt's legacy continued with dozens of films and multiple Disney theme parks around the world.
