Walter Elias Disney was born on Dec. 5, 1901, in Chicago, Ill., the fourth of five children,four boys and one girl In 1906 the family moved to a farm near Marceline, Mo.

In 1910 the family moved to Kansas City, MO. Walt Disney's first drawings were of the farm animals and began selling his sketches to neighbors at the age of seven. Later he did weekly sketches for a barber, for which he received either 25 cents or a haircut.

The family returned to Chicago in 1917 where Walt Disney attended McKinley High School, but his real interest was in the evening courses he took at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. At McKinley High School, Walt Disney devoted his attention to drawing and photography, contributing to highschool newsletter. He left high school without graduating.

Disney enlisted as a Red Cross ambulance driver in World War I. He returned to Kansas City after the war and worked as an artist with an advertising firm. At this time he made his first animated cartoons, 'Laugh-O-Grams'.In 1923 Walt had decided his future lay in Hollywood with the film industry He formed a partnership with his brother Roy and produced the 'Alice Comedies' series. In 1925 Walt Disney married Lillian Marie Bounds. They had two daughters Diana and Sharon.

The first cartoon to use synchronized sound, "Steamboat Willie" made it's debut at the Colony Theater in New York on November 18,1928. Walt Disney initiated the concept of using a separate cartoon for each movement. It is interesting to note that Walt Disney used his own voice for Mickey. A American icon was born. In a decade Mickey, Minnie Mouse, Pluto the dog, and Donald Duck became world famous.

Disney's first full-length film musical feature,"Snow White" and the Seven Dwarfs", was released in on December 21, 1937 . Over the next five years Disney classics Pinocchio "Fantasia", "Dumbo" and "Bambi" were completed.

In 1940, construction was completed on the Burbank Studio. During World War II, the Disney Studio's produced cartoons for the armed forces as training films and moral builders. Donald Duck stared in one such movie titled "Der Fuhrer's Face". In 1955 he opened Disneyland, in Anaheim, California. Later Disney directed the purchase of 42 square miles of land in Florida that was later to house DisneyWorld. In 1964 Walt Disney was awarded the "Presidential Medal Of Freedom" and an honorary degree from Harvard. Disney also took a deep interest in establishing the California Institute of Music and Chouinard Art Institute.

On December 15, 1966, Walt Disney died in Burbank, California as a result of Lung Cancer.

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