On October 16, 1923, the brothers Walt and Roy Disney founded "The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studios". What no one could have known at the time: The small film studio was to become one of the largest media empires in the world within the next hundred years.
As the timeline shows, the company continued to develop constantly and expanded its repertoire step by step. While in the early days Disney concentrated mainly on animated films such as "Steamboat Willie" or "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and was able to celebrate great successes with them, the first live-action film came in 1950 with "Treasure Island". Five years later, the first Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California, an amusement park based around Disney's creations. Founder Walt Disney did not live to see the opening of the even larger Disney World in Orlando in 1971 - he died of lung cancer in 1966 at the age of 65.
With the renaming to "The Walt Disney Company", the company made clear its change from a primary film studio to a real conglomerate, with more focus on merchandising. In the following years, Disney repeatedly made headlines with company takeovers and thus acquired more know-how and licences, which further consolidated the company's market position in the entertainment industry. Brands such as Star Wars or the Avengers found their way into the Disney Company through the acquisition of Marvel and Lucasfilm.
Due to its enormous brand portfolio, the launch of Disney's own streaming platform was virtually a "no-brainer" for the company. Disney+ was launched in the U.S. in November 2019, and the following March the streaming service was also available in parts of European. Just one year later, Disney+ already had 100 million users worldwide and has since become a serious competitor for the top dogs Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
