It has now been 100 years since Walt Disney began his journey of a lifetime making people smile across the globe. It all started with one main character, the face of Disney, Mickey Mouse. Walt and Mickey’s journey began in 1928 with Steamboat Willie his first Mickey Mouse short. That’s where his success came into play and during those times he voiced and created these cartoons for audiences. It took another 10 years before the Disney brothers’ next great leap forward. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was one of the first full-length animated features in the world to use color. It became the highest-grossing film of all time when it was released in 1938. As the years went by Walt made more animated movies making Disney more successful and popular. Walt wanted a bigger image than just animation, that’s why he decided to make Disneyworld where kids can meet the star icon Mickey Mouse. Walt had died from lung cancer in 1966, aged 65. His brother Roy, already 73, delayed retirement to help finish Disney World in his brother’s honor. He retired the day after its opening in October 1971 and died just two months later. There were some dark times for Disney after Walt’s death losing more people in the process. It wasn’t until CEO Michael Eisner delivered it, bringing a Broadway-musical style and computer technology to the animated films. More and more were being added to Disney like sports movies, and the introduction of Pixar changed Disney as a whole. After Pixar came Marvel, bought for $4 billion in 2009 for its long history of popular comic books and Hollywood movies. Three years later Disney bought Lucasfilm, founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas, bringing the full Star Wars franchise under Disney control, as well as the Indiana Jones films and subsidiary graphics and video game companies. In 2019, in one of the biggest corporate business acquisitions of modern times, Disney bought 21st Century Fox from media magnate Rupert Murdoch, for more than $70 billion. When Disney+ launched later that year, it had films and TV shows from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, and National Geographic available on demand. Within a day it had 10 million subscribers. One hundred years after its foundation in a small backroom office in Hollywood, Disney has a physical presence in 30 countries and its channels reach 100 more. To Walt’s famous words” It all started with a mouse” and that mouse and its company are still with us to this day.
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