How Walt Disney came back from ruin - BBC News

Mickey Mouse made his first appearance in the animated short Steamboat Willie, which was released on 18 November 1928.

When the film came out, Walt Disney was facing ruin – but then had a brain wave that would transform his life.

The animated short not only marked the debut of a global cultural icon, but it also set the path for Walt Disney's entire empire and was a pivotal moment in the development of cinema, introducing synchronised sound to animated cartoons.

Disney had long been fascinated by animals, to the extent that he would send his artists to an animal anatomy class before making Bambi (1942), which he describes in this exclusive BBC video from 1959.