NOTE: This feature is intended as a bit of a time capsule, written during and about Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary celebration from the perspective of the time when it occurred (in 2020 and 2021). Rather than updating it to change verb tenses and remove assumptions, it’s being preserved in its original state.
Walt Disney World has history. A lot of it. Of course, that’s what living fifty years will do for you!
Walt Disney World started big, and it’s gotten bigger. Over the course of its first five decades, the “Vacation Kingdom of the World” has grown from a ‘70s leisure resort anchored by a “Disneyland East” into a pop culture icon surpassing its older sister. Walt Disney World is practically ingrained in the DNA of the Western World. It’s as American as apple pie; as “middle class” as home ownership; as much a rite of passage as a driver’s license.
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