On August 27, 1928, eleven countries signed the Kellogg-Briand pact that banned war. The idea of the pact grew out of a request by the French foreign minister Aristide Briand that the United States made a non-aggression pact with France, in case the German restarted their military expansionism. U.S. secretary of state Frank B. Kellogg, decided to expand that request into a multi-nation pact that would ban war under international law.

After the initial signing, the first such ceremony to be captured on flim, nearly every country on earth endorsed the pact. There were two problems with the pact. The first was that it was not stated how the pact would be enforced should there be violations. The second was that it allowed for many qualifications (or excuses), such as self-defense or military alliance (helping other countries in war out of friendship and protection).

Eleven years later, those same countries which had signed the pact, engaged in war once again (World War I).

The audience in New York's Colony Theater on September 19, 1928, watched with fascination as, a film here piloted a boat, made some music by squeezing barnyard animals till they mooed, brayed or squawked, and rescued his girlfriend from a towering brute. The film was the pioneering sound cartoon starring Mickey Mouse. The man behind it was Walt Disney, and his fellow cartoonist Ub Iwerks.

Within ten years, Mickey Mouse was one of the most loved, most well-known figures in the world. In the time of the Great Depression, plucky Mickey became an all-time favourite. Among the leagues of fans were US President Franklin Roosevelt, Britain's King George V and Italy's Mussolini.