100 Cats Who Changed Civilization: History's Most Influential Felines

NADJEM ^{THE FIRST CAT WITH A NAME}

It is widely believed that domestic cats evolved from the African wildcat, a tabby-like creature called Felis silvestris libyca, along the banks of the Nile River. The first farmers, desperate to defend their hard-won stores of grain from rats and mice, were doubtless overjoyed when these small, lithe predators took up residence near their granaries, looking for easy kills. They were so happy, in fact, that they perhaps went out of their way to attract them and to see to their comfort.

It wasn’t long before those wild hunters became thoroughly domesticated, insinuating themselves not just into Egyptian homes, but into Egyptian culture as well. The cat goddess Bast became a popular cult figure, as did another, more sinister feline deity called Sekhmet. Felines in general were considered divine messengers, and killing one was taboo. Those who did so, even by accident, were often lynched on the spot by angry mobs. Pampered housecats wore earrings, nose rings, and expensive collars, and upon death they were often mummified and given lavish burials. Hundreds of thousands of cat mummies have been discovered all over Egypt.

And yet, though their pictures adorned everything from palace walls to scrolls to jewelry, very little was written or said about individual cats. Most, it is believed, didn’t even have names. They were all referred to simply as mau, which literally means “he who mews.”

That’s what makes one particular cat, who lived and died during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III (1479–1425 BC), so unique. The feline in question was called Nadjem (meaning “dear one” or, perhaps, “star”). Nadjem was mentioned on the wall of the tomb of a low-level functionary named Puimre, who was interred outside the ancient city of Thebes.

There’s little else to say about Nadjem, other than that Puimre must have loved him (or her) a great deal. Too bad he can never know the enormity of the boon he bestowed upon his pet. By choosing to preserve his cat’s moniker for posterity, he made him (or her) the first feline in recorded history who we can call by name.

MUEZZA ^{THE CAT WHO WAS MOHAMMED’S FAVORITE PET}

Christianity has always viewed the cat with suspicion. Over the centuries the poor creature has been accused of every conceivable crime, from stealing the breath of newborns to serving as Satan’s minion. Islam, however, takes the opposite view. The cat is so highly esteemed that it is even allowed in mosques.

Felines owe this exalted status to Muezza, the adored pet of the Prophet Mohammed. One day, as his faithful pet slept on one of the sleeves of his robe, Mohammed was called away to prayer. Rather than disturb the cat, he cut off the sleeve. When he returned, Muezza bowed to his master and received three strokes down her back in return. This blessing assured her a spot in the afterlife.

According to other tales, Mohammed would give sermons in his home with Muezza nestled in his lap. The stories are unclear as to what type of cat she was. However, this hasn’t stopped feline fanciers around the world from stating that she was everything from a tabby to an Angora to an Abyssinian.

DICK WHITTINGTON’S CAT ^{THE CAT WHO LAUNCHED A POLITICAL CAREER}

Situated atop London’s Highgate Hill stands a statue of a feline known simply as Dick Whittington’s cat. According to legend, he belonged to a man named Richard Whittington, who lived from 1350 to 1423 and served as mayor of London four times. Yet it is doubtful he would be remembered at all were it not for the stories about his wonderful pet—a pet who, in real life, he probably never possessed.

A great deal is known about the real Dick Whittington. He was the younger son of Sir William Whittington, Lord of the Manor of Pauntley in Gloucestershire. He made a fortune selling fine cloth and was on good terms with both King Richard II and his successor, King Henry IV. He married a woman named Alice Fitzwarren and, of course, served as London’s mayor. After his death, he willed his vast fortune to charity.

And then something strange happened—something that would transform the real Whittington into the hero of a childhood fable. The people of London, anxious to know more about their benefactor, invented a biography that centered around, of all things, a cat. The centuries-old account casts Whittington as a poor country lad who came to the big city to make a name for himself. He worked for a merchant named Fitzwarren and fell in love with Alice, his daughter. His sole possession was a cat, whom he gave to a sea captain to sell during his voyage.

Sometime afterward, Whittington decided to return to his hometown of Gloucestershire. But as he trudged past Highgate Hill he heard the city’s bells tolling. They seemed to say, “Turn again, Whittington, three times Lord Mayor of London.” So he went back to Fitzwarren’s house, where he learned that the captain he’d given his cat to had returned with incredible news. A foreign potentate whose palace was overrun by rats had bought the cat, paying with a huge pile of gold. Dick instantly became wealthy, married Alice, and eventually became Lord Mayor of London three times as predicted, plus an additional term.

The tale became (and remains) a popular children’s story retold regularly in books, plays, and pantomimes. One doubts that the real Whittington would mind. The cat with whom he shares the limelight has won him lasting fame.

THE CATERER ^{THE CAT WHO USED PIGEONS TO HELP A JAILBIRD}

Throughout most of human history, politics was a winner-take-all proposition in which losers forfeited their fortunes and lives. Such was almost the case for Sir Henry Wyatt, who was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1460. During the two-year reign of King Richard III, he supported the claims of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, to the throne. The king had Wyatt imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he was kept in freezing conditions, tortured, and fed a starvation diet.

But one day a feline walked through the grate covering the cell’s window and made the acquaintance of the room’s emaciated inmate. Wyatt, overjoyed to have company, petted and praised the cat. The two became fast friends, and the stray promptly set about saving its human companion’s life by killing pigeons and fetching them to Wyatt’s cell.

The famished prisoner gladly accepted them, and he convinced one of his jailers to dress and cook the birds. Soon the feline was referred to as Wyatt’s acater (caterer). Thus fortified, Wyatt held out against all adversity until, finally, Richard III was ousted from the throne by Henry Tudor, who was crowned Henry VII. Needless to say, the former prisoner’s prospects rapidly improved. He was freed from the Tower, given wealth and title, and lived to the ripe old age of eighty.

Through it all he never forgot the kindness of the Tower cat, whose fate is unrecorded. One hopes that Wyatt found a way to help his benefactor, as he did almost every other cat he encountered. “Sir Henry in his prosperity would ever make much of a cat, and perhaps you will never find a picture of him anywhere, but with a cat beside him,” said one historical account.

Today, the Church of St Mary the Virgin and All Saints in Maidstone features a stone memorial to Wyatt, “who was imprisoned and tortured in the Tower, in the reign of King Richard the third, kept in the dungeon, where fed and preserved by a cat.” The monument is a touchstone of sorts for the extended Wyatt family, which thrives in both the United States and Canada—and would be all but extinct were it not for one resourceful feline.

MANEKI NEKO ^{THE FORLORN TEMPLE CAT WHO BECAME JAPAN’S SYMBOL OF GOOD FORTUNE}

A visitor to almost any Japanese shop, restaurant, or bar will likely find, crouched near the entrance, a small porcelain statue of a cat. The cartoon-like creature may sport a slight smile and hold a gold coin cupped in one paw. The other paw (either the right or left) will be raised in a beckoning gesture. This is the famous Maneki Neko, or beckoning cat, a charm that supposedly attracts wealth and good fortune to anyone who displays it. But this creature may not be entirely mythological. According to Japanese legend, it is based on a real tortoiseshell tabby—a tabby whose timely invitation to a passing nobleman elevated a humble Buddhist shrine to wealth and fame.

Several different stories purport to tell what happened, but the following is the most commonly recounted: Sometime during Japan’s Edo period (1603–1867), a nobleman rode past a rundown temple outside Tokyo. While passing, he happened to notice the temple master’s cat, which seemed to beckon to him. Intrigued and perhaps slightly unnerved, he dismounted and approached. At that moment a lightning bolt struck the spot on the road he’d just left.

The noble, who believed the humble feline kept him from destruction, endowed his temple home with lands and money. Years later, when the cat who saved his life died, he had the first Maneki Neko figurine created in his honor. According to some versions of the tale, the place in question was the famous Gotoku-ji shrine near Tokyo. Whether this story is true is anyone’s guess. However, the popularity of cat statues among the Japanese is indisputable. They have been produced by the millions, in versions ranging from piggy banks to dashboard ornaments—all of them designed to attract money and luck to their owners, just as the original feline did.

The wings of pop culture have spread the talisman’s influence around the world—sometimes in unexpected ways. One of the most famous Pokémon characters, Meowth, is an anime incarnation of Maneki Neko. And the ubiquitous Hello Kitty bears more than a passing resemblance to the famous feline. Even her name is considered by some to be a loose translation of that of the beckoning cat.

RUTTERKIN THE CAT WHO WAS ACCUSED OF MURDER

During the Middle Ages, European cats received some of the worst press in the history of the species. They were accused of being agents of evil and of serving as familiars for witches. Popes occasionally railed against them, and public disapproval of felines could grow so heated that they would be exterminated from entire towns.

One example of this overreaction took place in Lincoln, England, in 1618. Joan Flower and her daughters, Margaret and Philippa Flower, were accused by the local magistrates of using the dark arts to take revenge on their employers, the Earl and Countess of Rutland. History doesn’t record the reasons for their ire. However, it describes their alleged methods in forensic detail. According to testimony from the women (extracted, as was usual at that time, under torture and intense interrogation), Joan Flower possessed a spirit familiar called Rutterkin, which manifested itself in the form of a sinister-looking black cat. The feline was their weapon of choice when casting spells. One favorite tactic was to steal gloves from members of the Earl’s family, boil them, prick them full of holes, and then rub them along Rutterkin’s back. According to court proceedings, this odd-sounding bewitchment accomplished the death of the Earl of Rutland’s son, Lord Ross.

And what did the supposedly demonic cat get in exchange? In addition to the women’s immortal souls, he also was allowed to feed on Joan Flower’s blood.

The death of Lord Ross, plus various odd illnesses suffered by other close relations, finally drove the Earl of Rutland’s family to believe that the Flowers were hatching some sort of plot against them. The women, after enduring all the usual inducements available to the medieval legal system, signed confessions. Joan died in custody, but her daughters were burned at the stake.

What became of Rutterkin? One hopes he had the good sense to simply slink away. His kind were maligned throughout Christendom, making it impossible for the hapless feline to get a fair hearing. Even today, in our supposedly enlightened era, his descendants are slandered in everything from Halloween cards to cheap, straight-to-video horror flicks. In a very real sense, today’s black cats have one paw in the Dark Ages.

SINH ^{THE LEGENDARY CAT WHO WAS THE FIRST BIRMAN}

Few cat breeds have histories as colorful—or as steeped in violence—as the Birman. This elegant, distinctive-looking longhaired cat owes its existence to two redoubtable felines, one of them legendary, the other quite real.

The first, called Sinh, was supposedly one of a hundred snow-white, yellow-eyed cats inhabiting the Temple of Lao-Tsun in Burma. There the golden, blue-eyed, female goddess, who oversaw the transmutation of souls from one plane of existence to the next, was worshipped by the Khmer people of Southeast Asia. Sinh was a particular favorite of the shrine’s chief monk, Mun-Ha.

One night raiders attacked the temple, mortally wounding Mun-Ha. As the monk lay dying, Sinh planted his feet on his master’s chest and faced the golden statue of the goddess. Suddenly his white body turned to gold and his yellow eyes to sapphire blue. His legs turned brown like the earth, but his feet, where they touched the priest’s body, became snow white as a symbol of purity. Not long afterward, all the other temple cats were similarly transformed.

Sinh, who had also taken up the soul of Mun-Ha, remained standing in front of the statue of Lao-Tsun, his eyes locked on hers. He died after seven days, delivering the spirit of his master to heaven. Afterward, it was said that whenever a Birman temple cat expired, the soul of a dead priest accompanied it to paradise.

Ironically, a tragedy not unlike the one that inspired the story of Sinh was instrumental in bringing this exotic breed to the West. In the early years of the twentieth century, the ancient temple was once more attacked by raiders. This time, however, two outsiders, Englishmen Major Gordon Russell and his friend Auguste Pavie were on hand to assist the monks in repelling the assault. Years later, in 1919, the monks sent Pavie, who had relocated to Europe, a reward—a male and female Birman. The male died during the long sea voyage to his new home, but the female arrived safely, and she was pregnant. It is generally believed that this single feline and her kittens formed the root stock of the Western branch of the Birman family.

SIAM ^{AMERICA’S FIRST SIAMESE CAT}

For centuries the world-famous Siamese cat could be found only in Siam (now Thailand). There they allegedly guarded Buddhist shrines and attended members of the royal family. It didn’t hurt that they were also arrestingly beautiful. Then, as now, the typical Siamese sported a light-colored body with black feet, tail, and face, accented by glittering blue eyes.

These cats were destined to become one of the world’s most popular breeds. But in the late 1800s, the creatures were largely unknown outside their home country. Their very first overseas ambassador went abroad in 1878, when David B. Sickels, a diplomat at the U.S. consulate in Bangkok, elected to send one to Lucy Hayes, wife of then-president Rutherford B. Hayes.

Considering everything the poor cat went through to reach America, one can understand why Siamese cats weren’t exported much. The beleaguered feline traveled for two months, first going overland from Bangkok to Hong Kong, then by sea to San Francisco, then traversing the entire North American continent to Washington, D.C. She finally arrived at the White House, tucked inside a Wells Fargo crate, in early 1879.

The Hayes family was delighted, and named the exotic-looking female Siam. She enjoyed the run of the executive mansion and made a habit of walking in on political functions, where her looks always caused a stir.

Sadly, her stateside tour didn’t last long. In the fall of 1879, she fell ill. The White House staff plied her with every delicacy imaginable, and the president’s personal physician, Dr. J. H. Baxter, was called in. He took Siam home with him so he could provide round-the-clock care, but to no avail. In October she finally expired.

The presidential family, the White House staff, and cat fanciers in general were greatly saddened, because Siam had made quite an impression during her brief stateside sojourn. Interestingly, the cat’s remains may still reside somewhere in the bowels of the government. After Siam’s death, the president’s steward, Billy Crump, supposedly delivered her body to the Secretary of Agriculture, with instructions that it should be preserved. Whether this happened—and where the remains might be—is now an open question. Careful searches of the Department of Agriculture and of the Smithsonian Institution’s vast holdings turned up neither hide nor hair of Siam.

TIGER ^{THE CAT WHO WAS KIDNAPPED FROM THE WHITE HOUSE}

Few felines have caused as much high-level consternation as Tiger, one of the cats owned by the thirtieth president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge, who served from 1923 to 1929, was arguably the most pet-friendly person ever to sit in the Oval Office. During his two terms he turned the White House into a veritable zoo. He and his wife, Grace, brought in a gaggle of domesticated birds ranging from canaries to a goose named Enoch, a donkey called Ebenezer, a semiwild bobcat named Smokey, and a vast collection of canines that included everything from collies to a Shetland sheepdog to a bulldog. Foreign dignitaries, apprised of the Coolidges’ tastes, gave the couple lion cubs, a bear, even a pygmy hippopotamus.

This immense cast of characters also included two cats, Tiger and Blacky. Of the two, Tiger seemed to grab the most headlines. The president made a habit of walking around with the tabby tomcat draped around his neck. During state functions, it was almost expected that at some point the cat would saunter in, observe the proceedings, and then wander back out.

Tiger’s penchant for wandering eventually got him into trouble. Back in Coolidge’s day no one thought of confining cats indoors—not even one belonging to the president of the United States. If the spirit moved him, Tiger was free to walk right through the iron fence surrounding 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and explore Washington, D.C. The spirit, it appears, moved him quite often. Once, when he failed to return, the worried president took the desperate step of mentioning his absence during a radio address, asking anyone who saw Tiger to please send him home. The plea worked. Not too long afterward, the wayward kitty was spotted near the Lincoln Memorial, about a mile away, and taken back to the White House.

After that, Tiger was equipped with a green collar and Blacky with a red one. Both carried the words “The White House” engraved on a metal plate. Unfortunately, Tiger soon disappeared again, this time for good. In hindsight, Grace Coolidge wondered if perhaps the collars had been a mistake. They were intended as identification. In reality, they turned poor Tiger into the mother of all souvenirs.

OSCAR ^{THE CAT WHO SANK THE BISMARCK—ALONG WITH SEVERAL OTHER VESSELS}

In May 1941, at the height of World War II, the mighty German battleship Bismarck was given orders to sail into the North Atlantic and attack the vast naval convoys hauling vital supplies from Canada and the United States to Great Britain. The Bismarck, considered one of the most powerful warships afloat, was uniquely qualified for the task. The British Royal Navy, desperate to preserve its lifeline to the New World, confronted the mighty ship as soon as it put to sea. After a bloody three-day fight, the vessel was pounded into scrap metal and sunk. Only a handful of its crew of thousands survived.

The lucky ones included the ship’s cat, Oscar, who was picked up by the destroyer HMS Cossack. The crew renamed the black feline with the white chest Unsinkable Sam and made him their mascot. But there was nothing lucky about Sam. Within five months the Cossack was torpedoed by a German submarine and sent to the bottom of the sea. Again, the survivors included the cat, who took up residence on the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal. But only three weeks later, the Ark Royal was also torpedoed and sunk. Perhaps it was a sort of vengeance: One of the aircraft carrier’s torpedo bombers had been responsible for damage to the Bismarck’s rudder, allowing Oscar’s original home to be caught and destroyed.

Eerily, the feline once more escaped Davy Jones’s locker, to be picked up by the destroyer HMS Legion. The authorities, perhaps afraid to let any creature so patently unlucky aboard another Royal Navy vessel, “retired” Oscar/Sam to dry land. He finished his long life at an old sailors’ home in Belfast, passing away in 1955. Happily, he took no ships with him.

JOCK ^{THE CAT WHO BECAME A HISTORIC LANDMARK}

Winston Churchill was one of history’s great cat lovers. Throughout his life there was almost always one—or more than one—nearby. One of the most famous included a pet simply named Cat. Once, when Cat ran away after Churchill yelled at him, he had a sign placed in the window of his home that read, “Cat, come home, all is forgiven.” The feline did indeed return and was rewarded with special treats to regain his favor.

During World War II, Churchill’s most high-profile companion at No. 10 Downing Street was Nelson, a large black tomcat who followed him everywhere, even into important meetings. Churchill said his companion contributed to the war effort by serving as “a prime ministerial hot water bottle.” But perhaps the most enduring of all of Churchill’s feline associates was—and remains—a marmalade cat given to him for his eighty-eighth birthday. Since the cat was a present from his private secretary, Sir John Colville, he was called by Colville’s nickname, Jock.

The new addition to the household immediately became a great favorite. Jock was allowed to perch on Churchill’s knee during formal photos that were taken for the wedding of one of his grandsons. But their time together was brief. Jock was only two years old when Churchill died in 1965. He actually sat on the bed with his master as the great man breathed his last. He remained at the family residence, Chartwell, until his own passing in 1974. He lies buried in a pet cemetery on the grounds.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Churchill’s will left Chartwell to the government, which turned the estate into a national monument. There was, however, a stipulation: The property always had to have a marmalade cat named Jock in residence. Currently the job is handled by Jock III. Not surprisingly, having a cat roaming around a historic landmark can be somewhat of a pain. The home’s conservators make sure the current Jock doesn’t try his claws out on the furnishings or get at the bowl of goldfish that resides perpetually in Churchill’s old study. Mostly he spends his days outdoors, catching the occasional mouse, sunning himself in the garden, and enjoying the largesse of a kindly master he will never know.

AHMEDABAD ^{THE CAT WHO SPARKED AN INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT}

At the beginning of the 1960s, famed U.S. diplomat John Kenneth Galbraith served for twenty-seven months as ambassador to India. During his tenure at that sensitive diplomatic station, he handled everything from the American response to the 1962 Sino-Indian war to disputes over his country’s relationship with Pakistan. But those important developments pale in comparison to the embarrassing international incident touched off by a member of his own household—who wasn’t even human. The greatest firestorm of Galbraith’s tenure erupted over a misunderstanding involving his pet cat, Ahmedabad.

It began in 1962. During an official visit to the Indian state of Gujarat, Galbraith’s two young sons were each given Siamese kittens. One received an utterly innocuous name and is forgotten by history. The other got what at the time must have seemed like an equally forgettable moniker—Ahmedabad, to commemorate the town in which it was born.

This probably would not have been a problem. Unfortunately, the Galbraith family shortened it to Ahmed. This, as they were soon to learn, is one of the many, many alternate names for the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

And that, as it turned out, was a big problem.

Shortly after the cat was innocently mentioned in a newspaper article, riots erupted across neighboring Pakistan, where the feline’s name was taken as an insult to Islam. American facilities were stoned, U.S. personnel were attacked in the streets, and mullahs across the country called for Galbraith’s head. “I do not think the Pakistanis were particularly sensitive,” Galbraith wrote in his memoirs. “In the darker reaches of our Bible Belt, there would have been criticism of a Pakistan ambassador who, at a moment of friction between our two nations, had, however innocently, named his dog Jesus.”

The crisis was finally ended when the diplomat explained, repeatedly and at great length, that the kitten was in no way, shape, or form named after a person—especially a religious prophet. Furthermore, to defuse any subsequent misunderstandings, it had been renamed Gujarat. Thus, with a meow rather than a roar, the incident faded away. “Amateurs will never understand how much can turn on the name of a kitten,” an amused Galbraith wrote.

SMUDGE ^{THE CAT WHO JOINED A UNION}

In Europe, it can be very hard to get ahead without belonging to a union. Such was the case for one beleaguered employee of the People’s Palace, a museum and indoor conservatory located in Glasgow, Scotland. The worker in question was a former stray cat named Smudge. From 1979 until her retirement in 1990, she worked as the facility’s mouser. Smudge became a celebrity, serving as the spokescat for various local groups and issues and lending her face to museum gift shop items ranging from ceramic statues to T-shirts. In 1987, when she vanished for three weeks, pleas from local dignitaries, including the Lord Provost of Glasgow, led to her discovery and return.

But Smudge’s greatest claim to fame was her union card. First the museum staff put her up for membership in the National and Local Government Officers Association as a blue collar worker, but she was rejected. So instead she signed on with the General, Municipal and Boilermakers Trade Union, which happily included her in its ranks. She remained a staunch supporter of organized labor until her death in 2000.

HUMPHREY ^{ENGLAND’S MOST CONTROVERSIAL CAT}

English prime ministers have a long history of sharing No. 10 Downing Street with felines. There’s more to it than mere affection, however. The sprawling government complex has something of a rodent problem, so the cats have always earned their keep.

A mouser named Humphrey was no exception. Found by a civil servant and named after a character on the popular British television show Yes, Minister, he started work in 1988 during the Margaret Thatcher administration, replacing a recently deceased tomcat named Wilberforce. For a government stipend of 100 pounds per year, Humphrey made life as hard, and as brief, as possible for the building’s vermin. He served throughout the Thatcher administration and straight through that of her successor, John Major.

It was good that Humphrey had work to serve as a distraction from the numerous crises and controversies swirling around him. In 1994, the press accused him of killing a nest full of robin chicks that occupied a window box outside Major’s office. The government, adopting peculiarly strong language, called the charges “libelous.”

That was nothing compared with what happened in June 1995, when Humphrey suddenly vanished. The situation grew so grim that on September 25 the prime minister’s office issued a memo lamenting the cat’s assumed death. But shortly thereafter he turned up at the Royal Army Medical College, where he’d been adopted as a presumed stray and renamed PC (short for Patrol Car).

The most serious dustup took place when Major’s conservative government was replaced by the administration of Tony Blair. Rumors quickly spread that the new prime minister’s wife, Cherie, either didn’t like Humphrey or was allergic to him. Finally, in November 1997 it was announced that the cat had been given to an anonymous elderly couple so that he could enjoy his “retirement.” This in turn sparked stories that Humphrey had been euthanized—a tale that was squelched only when photos of him standing beside some current newspapers were taken at his new (and secret) residence.

The various controversies faded when Humphrey went to his final reward in March 2006. Happily, throughout his eventful tenure, the veteran mouser remained blissfully oblivious to it all.

BLACKIE ^{THE CAT WHO COULD TALK—AND SUE}

U.S. law books are filled with groundbreaking civil rights cases. One of the most entertaining concerns a talented black cat from South Carolina. According to his owners, Carl and Elaine Miles, they acquired him at a rooming house in the late 1970s, when a girl with a box of kittens asked if they wanted one. “I said no, I didn’t want one,” Carl recalled during court testimony. “As I was walking away from the box of kittens, a voice spoke to me and said, ‘Take the black kitten.’ I took the black kitten, knowing nothing else unusual or nothing else strange about the black kitten.”

But things would soon get very unusual. A few months later Carl, inspired by what he called “the voice of God,” became convinced that the kitten was attempting to talk to him. So he tried to help the process by developing what amounted to a speech therapy program for cats. First he taped the sounds Blackie made, then played them back to him. He also encouraged his pet to watch his master’s lips as he spoke.

This effort paid off. The cat began, haltingly, to “talk” at six months. Shortly thereafter it could utter a grab bag of phrases clearly enough to become of interest to promoters. He talked (for a fee) on radio and television, and even made an appearance on the network program That’s Incredible.

But then the feline thespian’s fame subsided. By May 1981, the Mileses were reduced to exhibiting Blackie on the streets of Augusta, Georgia, where he would say things like “I want my mama” and “I love you” to passersby in exchange for handouts. Unfortunately, the local constabulary was less than charmed and insisted that the couple purchase a $50 business license. They complied, but then sued the city, stating that the law didn’t specifically mention talking animals. This was enough to make the case interesting. But then the Mileses went on to assert that the fee violated their right to free speech and association. Not just theirs, but Blackie’s too.

It was an interesting argument, to say the least, and one that might have eased the lives of noisy alley cats and chatty Siamese everywhere had the courts agreed with it. Unfortunately—though, perhaps, predictably—they didn’t. The couple lost their case in district court, which stated that even though Augusta’s business ordinance didn’t specifically mention talking animals, what the Mileses did was certainly a business, and therefore in need of a license.

The case was then kicked upstairs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh District. It, too, agreed that the couple needed to pay Augusta the contested $50. And in a footnote, the three-judge panel saw fit to address the issue of Blackie’s free speech rights, such as they were—or, in this case, weren’t. “The Court will not hear a claim that Blackie’s right to free speech has been infringed,” they said. “First, although Blackie arguably possesses a very unusual ability, he cannot be considered a ‘person’ and is therefore not protected by the Bill of Rights. Second, even if Blackie had such a right, we see no need for appellants to assert his right jus tertii [as a third party]. Blackie can clearly speak for himself.”

Thus ended the first attempt to gain free speech rights for cats. Not with a whimper, or even a meow, but with a quip.

CAT MANDU ^{THE FELINE WHO WAS A TRUE PARTY ANIMAL}

Few jobs offer as many chances for personal embarrassment and career-destroying scandals as that of political party boss. That’s what makes the spotless career of one Cat Mandu of Great Britain so exemplary. For several years he helped lead a high-profile—albeit not very powerful—political organization. If there was trouble, he always landed on his feet. And if there was controversy, he knew how to keep his mouth shut.

Actually, he had little choice on that count. Because he couldn’t talk. Because he was a cat. Specifically, a large ginger tomcat owned by Alan Hope, who was also known as Howling Laud Hope.

What sort of organization would grant leadership to a feline? None other than the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. As one can surmise from the name, the group isn’t entirely serious. Founded in 1983 by musician David Sutch (a.k.a. Screaming Lord Sutch), it has offered candidates for numberless elections, from seats in Parliament to the lowliest local posts. Their platform has, at various times, included a call to abolish the income tax; to retrain police officers “too stupid” to do their jobs as vicars in the Church of England; and to require passports for pets. Ironically, this last idea was taken up by the actual political parties and adopted.

There’s little chance of them following the Loony’s decision to put an animal in charge, however. In 1999, after Screaming Lord Sutch’s suicide, the faithful gathered at the Golden Lion Hotel in Ashburton, Devon, to select a new leader. According to Loony lore, the vote produced a tie between acting chairman Howling Laud Hope and his pet. By general acclamation, he and Cat Mandu became joint leaders.

The feline performed his duties with distinction. He even produced the party’s 2001 political manifesto—a blank page. Sadly, his career was cut short when, in July 2002, he was run over by a car while crossing the street. Not that the feline flavor of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party has been totally expunged. In 1978, the organization had adopted the leopard as its official Party Animal, which it remains to this day.

SOCKS ^{THE UNOFFICIAL MASCOT OF THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION}

While plenty of U.S. presidents have brought along dogs during their White House tenures, only a handful deigned to keep cats. Bill Clinton joined that short list in 1993 when the family feline, Socks, accompanied the first family to Washington, D.C. It was the culmination of an incredible rags-to-riches story for the black and white mixed breed. Born in 1991, he spent his kittenhood living under the porch of Chelsea Clinton’s music teacher’s home in Little Rock, Arkansas. The teacher wasn’t able to get close to either Socks or his sibling, a kitten named Midnight. But when Chelsea saw the duo and approached them, Socks jumped into her arms.

Thus a media phenomenon was born. Midnight also found a good home, but Socks won worldwide fame. First he lived in the governor’s mansion. Then, after Clinton’s election to the presidency, the Arkansas tomcat moved to the White House. Instead of crouching under a porch, he spent his days lazing in the garden outside the Oval Office or napping in a favorite chair in the West Wing. He also made numerous public appearances, often traveling in a cat carrier fitted with the presidential seal.

Not that life in a media fishbowl was always perfect. Photographers swarmed Socks, sometimes bribing him with catnip. After it was deemed too dangerous to give him free run of the White House grounds, he was confined to a very long leash. But those inconveniences paled in comparison to his longstanding quarrel with the “first dog,” a purebred Labrador retriever named Buddy. According to Hillary Clinton, Socks hated the exuberant canine “instantly and forever.” The two did, however, bury the hatchet long enough to pose for the cover of a book called Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids’ Letters to the First Pets.

After the end of the Clinton administration, Socks received not only a change of address, but a change of family. Given his well-known dislike for Buddy, Socks was turned over to the care of Betty Curie, Bill Clinton’s former personal secretary. The cat and Curie had always been great friends, and the Clintons felt that they should enjoy their retirements together. Today she and Socks live in Maryland in a Labrador-free house, far from the limelight.

COLBY ^{THE CAT WHO WENT TO COLLEGE, SORT OF}

Most people think there’s no substitute for a quality education. But in fact there is, as a six-year-old cat named Colby Nolan taught the world. In 2004, Pennsylvania Attorney General Jerry Pappert became aware of a Texas-based diploma mill that sold online college degrees via unsolicited e-mails. To foil the people behind it, his department set up a unique sting operation.

Undercover operatives made online contact with an “institution of higher learning” called Trinity Southern University in Plano, Texas. Actually, TSU didn’t exist. But then, neither did Colby Nolan, the eager scholar whom the sting operators claimed to be. According to their e-mails, young Colby was interested in obtaining a bachelor’s degree in business administration for the low, low price of $299.

When the TSU representatives sent him a “student application” to fill out, it was returned containing information that shouldn’t have qualified him for a GED, let alone university admission. Colby’s trumped-up resume stated that he’d taken three community college courses, worked at a fast-food restaurant, and had a paper route. Yet surprisingly (or, perhaps, not so surprisingly), the school’s administrators stated that his work experience qualified him not for a bachelor’s degree, but for an executive MBA (available for only $399, plus shipping).

The TSU people couldn’t know it, but Colby was even more unqualified than his resume made him sound. He was, in fact, a six-year-old black cat belonging to an attorney general’s office staffer. Yet once the check for his diploma cleared, he received an authentic-looking sheepskin, complete with signatures from the university’s president and dean. Another $99 netted Colby’s transcript. It stated that the feline, who could neither speak, read, nor write, and had never set one paw in a classroom, had accumulated a 3.5 GPA.

This was more than enough for the cops. Colby the student was revealed to be Colby the cat, and he even posed for news photographers while wearing a tiny, feline-sized graduation cap. Shortly thereafter charges were filed against the quasi-mythical TSU, along with the individuals who ran it. Not surprisingly, the school’s Web site almost immediately vanished from the Internet. All thanks to the school’s most notorious graduate.

LEWIS ^{THE CAT WHO WAS SLAPPED WITH A RESTRAINING ORDER}

Some felines become famous, but some become infamous. Such is the case for a longhaired black and white Connecticut tomcat named Lewis. The tiny miscreant’s violent temper got him in trouble with the law, earning him what amounts to a life sentence. The formerly outdoor cat has been condemned by city officials in the town of Fairfield to spend the rest of his days indoors—or else. City hall accomplished this by serving him with what was arguably the first restraining order ever issued for a cat; it is certainly the most controversial, widely publicized one.

Lewis’s brush with the law began when he launched unprovoked assaults on the people living on a quiet cul-de-sac named Sunset Circle. He appeared out of nowhere, attacking his victims from behind. “He looks like Felix the Cat and has six toes on each foot, each with a long claw,” one harassed resident told the Connecticut Post. “They are formidable weapons.” Lewis apparently wasn’t shy about deploying them against anyone who crossed his path, including a hapless Avon lady who was reportedly savaged as she got out of her car.

Finally a neighbor, Janet Kettman, who claimed to have been attacked twice, called the Fairfield Police Department’s animal control officer, Rachel Solveira. The officer slapped a restraining order on the offending beast, which had been dubbed the “Terrorist of Sunset Circle.” Lewis was allowed limited outdoor privileges if he took Prozac twice a day. But after a couple of months he was back in hot water when his owner, Ruth Cisero, stopped giving the cat his medication. And then, for good measure, she let him escape from the house. Not surprisingly, his first order of business was to seek out and savage another neighbor, Maureen Bachtig.

In no time, Cisero found herself sharing her pet’s punishment. She was arrested for failing to comply with a restraining order and second-degree reckless endangerment, and she was placed on probation. To add insult to injury, one of Lewis’s previous victims filed a $5,000 lawsuit against her.

Just when things couldn’t get any stranger, they did. The local newspapers broke the story, which quickly exploded into an international media sensation. Smelling a colorful human interest piece, press from around the world fell upon the juicy item like, well, Lewis going after an Avon lady. Overnight, Cisero, her embattled neighbors, and anyone else with the vaguest connection to the cat started fielding calls from everyone from CNN to Inside Edition to The Daily Show to the BBC. Lewis got his own page on myspace.com, and Save Lewis T-shirts hit the market shortly thereafter.

Cisero dutifully talked to the legions of reporters in hopes that all the interest might somehow help both her case and her cat. As for Lewis, he lounged indoors with his owner’s other feline, Thomas, and occasionally posed menacingly for cringing photographers. When he wasn’t doing “interviews,” he stared forlornly out the window at the birds and squirrels he’d formerly hunted. He was, at least, mercifully oblivious to the high-stakes legal wrangling over his future. In April 2006, at a court appearance crowded with media, Cisero asked for an end to her probation. The judge said she would only consider it if Lewis were euthanized. Finally, in June 2006, Cisero was granted “accelerated probation,” but with one stipulation. The judge in the case stated that Lewis could never go outside again. “There are no exceptions,” she warned sternly. “None.”

At last report, Lewis was grudgingly adjusting to house arrest. And his neighbors were reveling in his absence.

OTHER FELINES OF DISTINCTION

SLIPPERS: The arrogant pet of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. During a state banquet, an entire procession of diplomats had to detour around the cat, who had fallen asleep in a hallway.

TOM KITTEN: The pet of U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline. Unfortunately, Kennedy proved allergic to the cat, who was found a new home. At an auction of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s estate, a framed picture of Tom sold for a breathtaking $13,000.

MYOBU NO OMOTO: Favored pet of Japanese emperor Ichijo (980–1011). The pampered feline was so exalted that the emperor imprisoned the owner of a dog who dared to chase her.

MICETTO: A large tabby cat born in the Vatican who became the favored pet of Pope Leo XII. The pope allegedly held audiences while Micetto hid in his robes.

WHITE HEATHER: A fat Angora who was Queen Victoria’s favorite cat. The cat managed to outlive the famously long-lived queen and became the property of her son and successor, King Edward VII.