1908 - Illustrator/writer & Disney Legend Joe Grant is born in New York City. He will become interested in drawing while watching his father (an art director for William Randolph Hearst's newspapers) illustrate. In 1933, Walt Disney will discover Grant through his celebrity caricatures in the Los Angeles Record and invite him to design the movie star caricatures for the cartoon Mickey's Gala Premiere. Grant will go on to work on such early classics as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Dumbo and Fantasia. Grant will temporarily leave Disney in 1949 to pursue other artistic ventures, but later return in the late 1980s to contribute concepts, character designs, story ideas and gags for Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules.

1928 - Plane Crazy, Walt Disney's first silent short to feature Mickey & Minnie Mouse, premieres as a sneak preview at a theatre on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The film, a parody of the Charles Lindbergh craze, has cost $1,772 to make. Plane Crazy also features the very first appearance of Clarabelle Cow. It is co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Iwerks is also given credit as the main animator, although he is assisted by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. This is the last Disney project Harman and Ising worked on as they have jumped to a new studio formed by Charles Mintz. (The two will later leave Mintz's studio and go on to start Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studios!) Sound will later be added to Plane Crazy when it is re-released in March 1929.

1930 - The Disney Mickey Mouse short The Cactus Kid is released. Riding in on Horace, Mickey visits a western town but fails to impress a Mexican Minnie with his mischievous antics. He later succeeds in saving her from the dastardly Pegleg Pedro! It is the last Mickey short to be animated by Ub Iwerks (who weeks before left the Disney Studios).

1937 - Disney's Silly Symphony cartoon Little Hiawatha is released.

1937 - "Donald and Donna," the first Donald Duck adventure ever, is published in Mickey Mouse Weekly # 67 by Fleetway (a publishing company mainly producing comic magazines for the United Kingdom). The story (drawn by William A. Ward) is 15 pages long and will be published in weekly episodes.

1938 - The final (and 20th) episode of the radio series Mickey Mouse Theatre of the Air is broadcast on the NBC radio network. Originally scheduled to run as a thirteen-program series, it had been extended to twenty due to its popularity. (Because the programs took Walt away from his animation, he isn't entirely unhappy to see the weekly radio series end.)

1952 - Actor Chazz Palminteri, the voice of Buster in Disney's 2001 Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, is born in New York City.

1974 - Card Walker, Disney president and chief operating officer, announces to a meeting of the American Marketing Association that Walt Disney Productions will be moving ahead "in a phased program" with the development of Walt Disney's concept for EPCOT. The process of taking Walt's EPCOT (an idea for a real city) apart and concocting something different with the pieces has begun.

1977 - The Wonderful World of Disney airs the episode "Disney's Greatest Villains" hosted by Hans Conried on NBC-TV. It showcases Disney's upcoming release The Rescuers and introduces its arch-villain, Madame Medusa. The Rescuers will be released in June. (Conried's long list of Disney credits include Peter Pan, One Hour in Wonderland, Ben and Me, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, and The Story of Anyburg U.S.A.)

1978 - Actor David Krumholtz is born in New York City. Disney fans known him best as the sarcastic head elf Bernard in The Santa Clause (1994) and its 2002 sequel The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs Clause. (Fans of TV's Numb3rs known Krumholtz for his role of Charlie Eppes.)

1989 - Disney Channel airs episode 16 of MMC. The musical group Was (Not Was) appears on Music Day performing their hit "Walk the Dinosaur."

1998 - Bill Nye - of the syndicated television show Disney Presents Bill Nye the Science Guy - wins a Daytime Emmy for Performer in a Children's Series.

1999 - The Disney Channel Original Movie The Thirteenth Year debuts.

2001 - The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California, features "Walt Disney - The Man and His Magic," an exhibit about Walt. (The exhibit will run through September.)

2001 - Over 200 Disney Cast Members perform in "FLASHBACK: When You Wish Upon A Star" for family, friends and fellow cast members at the Hyperion Theater in Disney's California Adventure. Four different musical stories are performed by groups of cast members representing areas of the Disneyland Resort. Ticket and food sales are donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Orange County. The event raises $16,000.

2003 - Mexican American billionaire Arturo "Arte" Moreno makes history by becoming the first Hispanic to own a major sports team in the United States when he purchases the Anaheim Angels baseball team from the Walt Disney Company.

2004 - Cartoonist Jack Bradbury passes away at the age of 89. At the age of twenty, he joined the Disney Studio and worked as an inbetweener from 1934-1938 on such cartoons as The Band Concert and Through The Mirror. He later became a full animator and worked on several key scenes in Disney features, including the stag fight in Bambi, the Pegasus family gliding into a watery landing in Fantasia, and Figaro walking across Gepetto's bed in Pinocchio.

2007 - The Broadway adaptation of Mary Poppins receives 7 Tony nominations for Best Musical, Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical (Gavin Lee), Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical (Rebecca Luker), Best Scenic Design of a Musical, Best Costume Design of a Musical, Best Lighting Design of a Musical, and Best Choreography.

2008 - Florida Governor Charlie Crist applauds Walt Disney World Resort for its achievement of 100 percent of its lodging properties earning the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Green Lodging Program designation - covering all 23 of its resort hotels plus Disney's Vero Beach Resort. Launched in 2004 by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Green Lodging Program establishes environmental guidelines for hotels and motels to conserve natural resources and prevent pollution.

2009 - Disney Theatrical Productions' The Lion King has its official grand opening at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

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