Short answers, pulled from the story.
Walt Disney World opened on the 1st of October 1971. The Magic Kingdom, the Polynesian Village Resort, and the Contemporary Resort Hotel all opened on that date, followed by a formal dedication ceremony between October 23 and 25, 1971.
Walt Disney Productions used a series of dummy corporations to acquire land in Central Florida beginning in April 1964, preventing landowners from knowing Disney was the buyer and avoiding a spike in land prices. Companies with deliberately misleading names such as the Ayefour Corporation and the Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation purchased approximately 27,443 acres at prices as low as $100 an acre. The dummy corporations were eventually merged into the Compass East Corporation in 1966.
Roy O. Disney, Walt's older brother and business partner, came out of retirement to oversee construction of the resort's first phase after Walt died on the 15th of December 1966. Roy also insisted the resort be named Walt Disney World in his brother's memory. He died in December 1971, less than two months after the opening.
EPCOT Center cost $1.5 billion to construct, with the Walt Disney Company contributing approximately $1.2 billion and corporate sponsors covering the remainder. It opened on the 1st of October 1982, three years after groundbreaking on the 1st of October 1979.
As of 2025, Walt Disney World employs over 80,000 people across more than 3,000 job classifications. When the Magic Kingdom first opened in 1971, the site employed approximately 5,500 people. The resort is the largest single-site employer in the United States.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District was a special governing jurisdiction created by the state of Florida in May 1967 at Disney's request, giving the Walt Disney Company unusual authority to self-govern the land around Walt Disney World. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation ending the district on the 22nd of April 2022; it was replaced by the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District when the new law took effect in June 2023. Before the takeover was finalized, Disney signed a contract with the district using a royal lives clause that effectively preserved Disney's construction and development authority indefinitely.