storyofpooh

THE BEGINNING
   It was during the first World War, that troops from Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada) were being transported to eastern Canada. The troops going to Europe, where they were to join the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade.
When the train stopped at White River, Ontario, a lieutenant called Harry Colebourn bought a small female black bear cub for $20 from a hunter who had killed its mother. He named her 'Winnipeg', after his hometown of Winnipeg, or 'Winnie' for short.
   Winnie became the mascot of the Brigade and went to Britain with them. When the Brigade was posted to the battlefields of France, Colebourn, (who was now a Captain) took Winnie to the London Zoo for a long loan. He give London Zoo 'Winnie' officialy in December 1919 where she was very popular. 'Winnie' lived until 1934.

A.A. MILNE
    Christopher Robin, son of author A.A. Milne saw 'Winnie' at London zoo. She was his favourite animal at the Zoo, and he often spent time inside the cage with it. The bear was Christopher Robin's inspiration for calling his own teddy bear Winnie.....Winnie the Pooh (this teddy bear started out with the name of Edward Bear and the name Pooh originally belonged to a swan, as can be seen in the introduction of Milne's 'When We Were Very Young').
   A.A. Milne began to write a series of books about Winnie the Pooh, his son Christopher Robin, and their friends in the 100-Acre-Wood (the area around Milne's country home of Cotchford Farm, Ashdown Forest, Sussex, England). The other characters, such as Eeyore, Piglet, Tigger, Kanga and Roo were also based on stuffed animals belonging to Christopher Robin. The characters, Rabbit and Owl, were based on animals that lived near their farm, like the swan Pooh.

   'Winnie-the-Pooh' was published by Methuen on October 14th, 1926, the verses 'Now We are Six' in 1927, and 'The House at Pooh Corner' were published in1928.
   All these books were illustrated in a beautiful way by E.H. Shepard, which made the books even more magical.
   The Pooh-books became favorites with old and young alike and have been translated into almost every known language.       More than 20 million copies of the four Methuen editions have been sold (these figures do not include sales of the four books published by Dutton in Canada and the States, or the foreign-language editions printed in more than 25 languages worldwide).

WALT DISNEY

   The Pooh-books had also been favourites of Walt Disney's daughters and it inspired Disney to bring Pooh to film in 1966. In 1977 'the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh', the first feature-length animated film of Pooh was released. In 1993, the Walt Disney Company acknowledged that Pooh Bear is second only to Mickey Mouse in their portfolio of the most-loved and trusted characters known to millions of people all over the world. By 1996, after the second release of 'the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh', the Bear of Very Little Brain had proven to be more popular than any other Disney character. In 1997, twenty years after the release of the first feature-length animated film, Disney released 'Pooh's Grand Adventure', picking up where Disney's 22nd Masterpiece left off.

In February 2000 Disney released the third Winnie the Pooh movie called 'The Tigger Movie', this time with the leading part for Tigger.