Disney World Celebrates Its 40th Anniversary
Bettmann / Corbis
Dreaming of Disney
The impetus for Disney World came from Walt Disney (above in 1953), who, it is said, disliked all of the businesses that opened around Disneyland in California. Furthermore, most of the population of the U.S. still lived east of the Mississippi in the 1950s, when Disneyland opened. It made sense to open a similar park nearer to them.
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