ANIMALS THAT SCULPTED HUMAN HISTORY

THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG THAT SAVED NAPOLÉON

It is widely believed that a Newfoundland whose name and sex has gone

unrecorded saved the great military general Napoléon Bonaparte from

certain death. In 1815, during Napoléon’s escape from exile on the

island of Elba, a gigantic wave knocked him overboard, which almost led

to his death. Fortunately, a fisherman’s dog (the unnamed Newfoundland)

jumped into the water and kept Napoléon afloat until he could reach

the safety of the shore.

CHER AMI: THE MOST HEROIC PIGEON IN HISTORY

During WWI Cher Ami was one of the many birds used by the US Army

Signal Corps in France to transport important messages from commanders

in the battlefield. In one of the missions Cher Ami was shot by German

troops after he took flight, but the wounded bird continued flying and

heroically managed to deliver the important message he carried.

As a result, a Lost Battalion of the Allies was saved, and Cher Ami later

was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government. After he

died in June 1919, the famous bird was preserved by a taxidermist and

put on display at the Smithsonian.

THE HUNGRY WOLVES WHO TEMPORARILY ENDED WWI

In the winter of 1916–17 the Germans fought against the Russians in

an area stretching more than a thousand miles from the Baltic Sea in

the north to the Black Sea in the south. During that winter the sub-zero

temperatures and icy weather didn’t just cause problems for the soldiers,

they also forced the starving Russian wolves to attack organized

groups of soldiers. The problem eventually became so serious that

there were days where both sides had more casualties from the vicious

wolf attacks than the actual battles. Because of this the soldiers

convinced their commanders to make a temporary truce so they

could join forces against the bloodthirsty wolves. The two sides

discussed how to find an effective solution to the situation and finally,

after concerted effort and cooperation, they managed to murder

hundreds of wolves while the rest scattered, permanently leaving the area.

The victory against the wolves accomplished, the truce ended and the

soldiers went back to killing each other again.

THE BIRDS THAT INSPIRED THE INVENTION OF THE ROBOT

Archytas, an ancient Greek mathematician and scientist who lived around

430–350 BCE, is also known as “the Father of the First Robot,” but if it

wasn’t for his fascination with and love for birds, especially pigeons, he

would never have earned such a flattering title. See, in his quest to learn

how birds fly, Archytas created his own steam-powered wooden “pigeon,”

because he believed that it would help him better understand how real birds fly.

Despite the fact that Archytas created the artificial bird for a different

purpose, he accidentally gave to the world the first robot and flying machine.

THE RATS AND FLEAS THAT KILLED ALMOST HALF OF

EUROPE’S POPULATION

In the mid-fourteenth century, a deadly pandemic known as the

“Black Death” wiped out about half the European population. Later,

scientists and researchers found that the infectious disease that

killed so many people was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis,

which infects rats and other small rodents and is typically transmitted

to humans by the bite of infected fleas. This discovery confirmed that

these tiny little “invaders” caused the Continent’s greatest biomedical

disaster in history.

DOLLY: THE MOST FAMOUS CLONE IN HISTORY

Arguably the most famous animal of our generation, Dolly made history

back in the nineties when she became the first mammal to be cloned.

From a medical and biological viewpoint the significance of this feat

can benefit humans and animals alike in literally millions of ways, one of

these being cloning other animals, even extinct ones, which would mean

that Tibbles the cat (aka The Terminator) would be erased from the history

books since the Stephens Island wren could be resurrected.

LAIKA: THE ICONIC SPACEDOG

Even though Laika was not the first animal in space, it’s without a doubt

the most famous and the first to orbit Earth as the only crewmember of the

legendary Sputnik 2 in 1957. Unfortunately, Laika died during the flight, as

was inevitable since the technology to return from orbit had not yet

been invented.

BALTO: THE HUMANIST

This is the only time in recorded history that an animal saved not one

or two people, but the whole population of a town with his heroic act.

In 1925 the Alaskan town of Nome suffered a devastating outbreak of

diphtheria and the only available airplane in the area was frozen and

non-functional, so several teams of sled dogs were put together to

rush to Anchorage for the antitoxin. For over a thousand miles,

the heroic dog led the team, going through whiteout blizzards and all

kinds of danger in the hostile environment. The dog’s fearless journey

is nowadays honoured through the running of the annual Iditarod

Trail Sled Dog Race and is the story behind the Disney animated film 

Balto, who is voiced by Kevin Bacon.