Disneyland

On July 17, 1955, an amusement park called Disneyland covering 160 acres in Anaheim, California opened and soon became the mecca destination for family vacations in America. Created by the famous Hollywood animated film producer Walt Disney, Disneyland is a place where a child or grown-up child can see Disney's cartoon characters come to life; here he can enter a world of fantasy or history, explore a medieval castle, and ride on a stage coach or a Mississippi steamboat.

The park was divided up into four theme sections: Fantasyland, Adventureland, Frontierland, and Tomorrowland as well as an entrance area, Main Street USA, depicting the quiet charm of a turn-of-century small town.

Although Disneyland became an overnight success, it soon became surrounded by other people's businesses—hotels, hash houses, souvenir shops, and other enterprises that were unsightly and not in keeping with the Disney image; and worse, they were making millions of dollars each year on Disneyland's coattails.

"We lost control of the environment," said one Disney executive in 1971, explaining why Walt Disney had bought forty-three square miles in Florida for his second theme park.

Disney World is about 20 miles outside of Orlando, a city in central Florida. It opened October 1, 1971, five years after Walt Disney died.

The basic idea at Disneyland, which was further improved at Disney World, is to create nostalgia for the past and excitement about the future. What impresses everybody about Walt Disney World is how efficiently it works.

"We're Disney. We've got to have the biggest, the best, the most tasteful," CEO Michael Eisner declared, also announcing that the 1990's will be "the Disney decade".