Post by Dave on Jun 10, 2014 6:44:09 GMT -5
1910: Imagineer, horticulturalist & Disney Legend Morgan "Bill" Evans was born in Santa Monica, California. He guided the landscape design of Disney theme parks for half a century, most notably the original Disneyland park. As a young man, Evans transformed his father's garden into a nursery business selling rare and exotic plants to the Hollywood elite. One of his customers was Walt Disney himself who asked Evans to landscape the grounds of his Holmby Hills home and surrounding gardens. Impressed by Evan's skill, Disney hired him to transform 80 acres of Anaheim orange groves into a lush theme park. After Disneyland opened in July 1955, Evans stayed on with Disney, working as a landscape planner, consultant, and maintenance supervisor. He later lent his expertise to Epcot, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris as well as Disney World's Polynesian Resort.
1994: Thelma Howard, the Disney's live-in housekeeper and cook for 30 years (beginning in 1951 at the age of 38), passed away just shy of her 80th birthday. Nicknamed "Foo-Foo," Walt often referred to her as "the real-life Mary Poppins." As a housekeeper for the Disney family, she received a few shares of Disney stock as a Christmas gift as well as for birthdays and special events. She lived frugally throughout her life, apparently not knowing the rising value of the stock actually made her a multi-millionaire at the time of her death.
2000: To mark the return of The Indiana Jones Spectacular to Disney-MGM Studios after a six-month hiatus for refurbishments, Disney invited 500 Floridians, mostly from the Orlando area, with the last name "Jones" to be in the audience for the grand reopening show.
Walt Disney World's Shades of Green Resort was sold outright to the U.S. Military in 2004. (At one time called the Disney Inn, it was first leased by the Department of Defense in 1994.) The deluxe resort is located in a secluded area near the Magic Kingdom -nestled between the Magnolia and Palm golf courses.
The tank used in Epcot's The Living Seas holds 5.7 million gallons of saltwater making it one of the largest saltwater tanks in the world! Called “the world’s sixth largest ocean,” Epcot’s Living Seas aquarium is packed with more varieties of fish than probably ever seen in a real ocean.
It took more than 650 Walt Disney Imagineers more than 350,000 hours (the equivalent of 40 years of time) to develop Epcot's Mission: SPACE.
Cinderella Castle is larger and more ornate than Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle. Cinderella Castle was completed in July 1971, after about 18 months of construction. It is 189 feet tall - more than twice the size of Sleeping Beauty Castle.
But Walt built it so I still love it.