Winnie the Pooh, a.k.a. Pooh Bear, was born in 1926 when the English author Alan Alexander Milne created the ursine honey lover and his friends — Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, Rabbit, Kanga and Roo — based on his son Christopher Robin's toy collection. Christopher had named his favorite teddy bear after a Canadian black bear called Winnie (for Winnipeg, its birthplace) who resided at the London Zoo. Milne's first Pooh adventure, Winnie-the-Pooh, was illustrated by E.H. Shepard and published in October 1926. Now We Are Six — a collection of poems and verses — hit the stands in 1927, and The House at Pooh Corner arrived in 1928. The Pooh books became a firm favorite with kids everywhere and have been translated into more than 50 languages. In 1988, Walt Disney Studios adapted the stories into a series of animated feature films that spawned one of the most successful franchises of all time.