1837 - Composer Emile Waldteufel is born Strasbourg, France. (His work "Estudiantina" was featured in The Timekeeper attraction at Walt Disney World.)

1928 - Actor Dick Van Patten is born in New York City. His Disney credits include the 1975 film The Strongest Man in the World and the 1976 films The Shaggy D.A. and Freaky Friday. (TV fans know him best as the father on Eight Is Enough.)

1931 - Disney's Christmas-themed Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's Orphans is released. It will be nominated for an Academy Award - Short/Subjects/Cartoons. (Ironically it will lose to Disney's Flowers and Trees.)

1931 - Actress Paddi Edwards - the voice of Atropos for Disney's animated Hercules - is born. Her Disney credits also include the feature An Extremely Goofy Movie, and TV episodes of Timon and Pumbaa and The Little Mermaid.

1933 - Disney's Silly Symphony cartoon The Night Before Christmas (based on Clement C. Moore's classic poem) is released.

1934 - Actress Judi Dench, the voice of Mrs. Calloway in Disney's 2004 animated feature Home on the Range, is born in York, North Yorkshire, England. As of 2008, she is also the new narrator of Epcot's revised Spaceship Earth.

1938 - Disney's Silly Symphony cartoon Merbabies is released. As the Disney Studios are too busy, this short is produced by Harman-Ising Studios (Walt's former Laugh-O-Grams colleagues).

1955 - The Mickey Mouse Club airs on ABC-TV. Today is Talent Round-Up Day.

1957 - Singer-actor Donny Osmond, who supplies the singing voice for Captain Li Shang in Disney's Mulan, is born in Ogden, Utah. As a member of the Osmond Brothers, Donny's performed many times at Disneyland. In September 2006 he began playing the role of Gaston in the Broadway musical Beauty and the Beast.

1962 - The NBC-TV series Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color airs part 2 of "The Mooncussers."

1985 - Pixar is incorporated in the state of California.

1992 - The National Hockey League awards Disney a hockey franchise (the team will become known as The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim).

1994 - Disney animators move into their Riverside Drive building in Hollywood. The building becomes known as "The Hat Building" because it features the large conical "sorcerer's hat" at the front entrance.

1994 - The Tomorrowland Terrace, a restaurant in Disney World's Tomorrowland, reopens as Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe.

1994 - The Disneyana Fun Fair takes place at the Westcoast Anaheim Hotel. In addition to the show and sale, Disney personalities like the Academy Award wining songwriting team of Robert and Richard Sherman and veteran animator Floyd Norman are on hand.

2002 - Disney's Aladdin - Live On Stage begins performances at the Hyperion Theatre in Disney's California Adventure park.

2002 - The soft opening of Tower of Terror 4 (featuring new random drop sequences) goes into operation at Disney-MGM Studios.

2003 - Walt Disney Home Video releases the first two volumes of the Disney Channel Lizzie McGuire series to DVD. Fashionably Lizzie and Growing Up Lizzie feature individual episodes from the popular series.

2005 - Walt Disney Pictures releases The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

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