Author Foxx Nolte gives readers a glimpse behind the curtain of the most magical place on earth.

Millions of people a year visit Walt Disney World, but few would consider it to be a place with any real history. But hidden just below the surface, past the blanket of pixie dust, is a story as vivid and bizarre as any. It is a history of corporate politics, urban planning, crazy ambitions, and failed schemes. The Hidden History of Walt Disney World takes you on a journey that stretches from "Old Florida" to the events that made Walt Disney World what it is today. There's birds made of citrus, horizontal elevators, a ghost town, and tennis ball factories. And that's just the start. Whether you've visited one or one hundred times, your vacation will never be the same again. Yep, the castle is fake. But the stories are not .

Although several people had considered constructing a railroad to Key West beginning in the early 1800s, it took a bold industrialist with unparalleled vision to make it happen.

In 1902, Henry Flagler made the decision to extend the Florida East Coast Railway to "the nearest deepwater American port." In this book, renowned Florida historian Seth H. Bramson reveals how the Key West Extension of the Flagler-owned FEC became the greatest railroad engineering and construction feat in U.S., and possibly world, history, an accomplishment that would cement Flagler's fame and legend for all time. Join Bramson as he recounts the years of operation of this great railroad, what it did for the Florida Keys and what it meant to the resident conchs.

Winter Park, a vibrant city in Central Florida reminiscent of a New England village, witnessed the following exciting changes in the 1960s: the building of a new city hall, the establishment of the Sidewalk Arts Festival, and construction of shopping centers and apartment buildings. Beloved businesses, such as the Yum Yum Shoppe and Café del Prado, thrived on the downtown strip of Park Avenue. The Langford Hotel welcomed glamorous guests and hosted beauty pageants. Winter Park promoted children's activities, from Easter egg hunts in Central Park to citywide athletic competitions, while racial integration emerged in its recreational facilities. The city's popular mayor, Ed Gurney, rose to become a US representative and then a US senator.

In 1927, American entrepreneur Juan T. Trippe founded what would later become Pan American World Airways, one of the world's most prominent airlines of the 20th century. From the very first airmail flight flown from Key West to Cuba, Trippe provided leadership and innovation that put Pan Am at the top of the commercial airline industry. His global pioneering spirit expanded the world's reach for the masses while at the same time provided the most glamorous of air-travel experiences. The rise and fall of an American empire is examined in this full-color postcard history of Pan Am.

It was September 12, 1962, when Pres. John F. Kennedy delivered a speech at Rice University before nearly 50,000 people. By that time, America had launched but four men into space--the suborbital flights of Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom and the nearly identical three-orbit journeys of John Glenn and Scott Carpenter. Buoyed by the success of those missions and cognizant of the danger that lay ahead, the president rearticulated his vision and reissued his challenge to reach the moon before 1970. "We choose to go to the moon, in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills." The assassination of President Kennedy, in the words of flight director Gene Kranz, turned his vision into a "quest to do it and do it in the time frame he allotted." On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder of the lunar module known as Eagle, taking "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."