I'm 59 and grew up knowing about Sleeping Beauty and Snow White for that matter, but never have seen the movies until the last month. Unless you caught them in a theater decades ago, hasn't Disney held these in their "vault" until recently. Or did they make a rare appearance on cable or VHS?
They had limited releases on VHS in the past, as well as limited releases to theaters and some broadcast TV IIRC. I'm only a couple of years younger than you and honestly don't remember which ones I might have seen as a child. However, as my children who were born in the early '90s were growing up, many of these were released on VHS which we purchased and watched numerous times. I picked this one up when it was released in Blu-ray, as it's such a technically stunning animation and I wasn't disappointed.
"Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye." 2001: A Space Odyssey
My mom was a little girl when this came out in theaters. She said that many of the grown-up women at the time (including grandma) commented on how Aurora's hair was "too long," but they understood it was a fairy-tale and she could get away with it. Mom also said that Maleficent using "all the powers of hell," and having demons at her disposal made some Christian audience viewers at the time a little uncomfortable. Despite this, most everyone loved the film and were singing the songs from it or having their daughters act it out within months of the film being released.