Grimm's Fairytales and Disney's adaptations of them

The origin of many of the world famous fairytales such as Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White etc are often associated with the Grimm Brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm. The brothers didn't actually write many stories such as Cinderella, they actually existed long before they were even born, and used to be told as household stories passed down from generation to generation. But, as industrialisation began to take root, customs and traditions changed and these household stories were slowly losing their place in the home. Jacob and Wilhelm decided to set on a little quest to stop these stories from becoming extinct, and interviewed many house maids and relatives in order to pluck out what they could from each story, sometimes adorning the stories slightly (although they claimed they didn't) and later in 1812 published all stories in the book "Kinder und Hausmärchen" (Children's and Household Tales).
Originally however, the stories were not intended for kids. Many of the original tales included sex, violence, rape, incest and copious footnotes. In the original story for example, Rapunzel gets pregnant after a casual fling with the prince, and in Cinderella the step sisters cut off part of their foot to fit into the glass slipper. These graphic scenes were then revised and tweaked when the stories began becoming popular among the children. 
Thanks to their popularity among children in the 18th and 19th Century, Walt Disney then began a few adaptations of his own based on these fairytales. Some of the stories his company adapted were Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Snow White etc. Most of the time Disney's adaptations have a much happier ending, for instance the princess is rescued from the tower in "Tangled", which is the adaptation of Rapunzel, rather than follow the original story where she winds up pregnant by a one-night stand with a prince. Another adaptation for instance is where Sleeping Beauty is awoken by the kiss of a prince, rather than the child sucking the poisonous spindle out of her finger (she was raped by a prince in the original story and wound up pregnant). 
Disney's adaptations are renowned for their Happily Ever After endings, despite originally ending rather differently. They are now still part of our cultural DNA, but mostly thanks to the latest adaptations by Disney, rather than the original tales by Jacob and Wilhelm.