On October 1, 1971, a man in a Mickey Mouse costume cut a giant ribbon, a marching band launched into a tune, and the gates of the Magic Kingdom swung open for the first time. Visitors poured down Main Street, U.S.A., toward the gleaming Cinderella Castle. Tickets cost $3.50 for adults. About 10,000 people showed up that opening day - far fewer than Disney had hoped, but the trickle would soon turn into a flood.
Walt Disney himself never got to see the park finished. He had spent his final years secretly buying up 27,000 acres of swamp and orange groves in central Florida, using fake company names so prices wouldn't shoot up. After he died in 1966, his brother Roy took charge and pushed the project to the finish line. Roy insisted the place be called Walt Disney World instead of just Disney World, so everyone would remember whose dream it was. The opening had only one hotel, 23 rides, and acres of empty land waiting for what came next.
What came next was enormous. EPCOT opened in 1982, Disney-MGM Studios in 1989, and Animal Kingdom in 1998. Today Walt Disney World covers an area twice the size of the island of Manhattan, with four theme parks, two water parks, and more than thirty hotels. More than fifty million people visit each year - making one Florida swamp the most-visited vacation spot on Earth.
