Sam Stall - 100 Cats Who Changed Civilization

When he started life, Toni became one of a handful of absolutely pureblood long-haired Turkish Angoras in the world. He was born into a forty-year breeding program overseen by the Ankara Zoo and designed to save the felines, which were once favorites of European royalty, from extinction.

Toni’s role as a stud cat was ordained before he was conceived. But then an outbreak of an AIDSlike virus at the Ankara Zoo devastated the breeding population, leaving Toni as the only male cat with top-notch bloodlines who was capable of reproducing. Not surprisingly, his value rose faster than an Internet stock before the dot-com bust. His stud fee alone was reckoned at around £600. Over his lifetime, this Secretariat of cats would fetch a fortune.

That cash is now most likely going into someone else’s pockets. In spite of intervention by Interpol, no one has seen hide nor hair of Toni since his abduction. Police theorize that perhaps a German “collector” absconded with the cat. Collins reported that the woman said something in German as she dashed away.

One needn’t worry about the conditions of Toni’s imprisonment, however. Wherever he is, he’s probably being treated well—and having lots and lots of intimate encounters with female cats. One hopes his new owner keeps a close eye on him and keeps his outdoor run securely locked.

It’s hard to tell where the private life of renowned London conceptual artist Tracey Emin ends and her very public professional life begins. She’s worked in media ranging from paint to photography to appliquéd quilts. Her most famous piece was called, simply, My Bed . True to the name, it was her own unmade bed, surrounded by dirty clothes and other refuse. It caused an uproar in the art world, turning Emin into a celebrity. Today the piece is valued in the neighborhood of £150,000.

Clearly, almost anyone or anything can become part of her work—a fact that came back to bite her when her cat, Docket, ran away from home in 2002. Distraught, Emin posted handmade “lost kitty” posters around her neighborhood. Almost immediately they were taken down by collectors, who sold them for as much as £500. Flabbergasted, Emin put out the word that there was nothing in the least artistic about the hastily written notices. Fortunately, everything worked out in the end. The collectors got to keep their trophies, and Docket found his way home on his own.

Many artists suffer for their work, but few suffered as much as Internet celebrity Frank the Cat. In 2003, the search engine Yahoo! declared his Web offering to be one of its top sites of the year. All Frank did to gain such plaudits was lie quietly in a cage. Oh, and almost get himself killed.

The unlikely story began in January 2002, when Frank, an English cat residing in Cambridge, was hit by a car. The accident broke his pelvis, requiring reconstructive surgery and a lengthy recovery. The feline spent his convalescence piled up in a cage at the home of his master, David Donna, the managing partner of a small Internet firm.

Donna had an idea. Ostensibly to test some company software—but also, perhaps, because he thought it might be cool—he created a Web site chronicling Frank’s ordeal, complete with pictures of his X-rays and a biography of his pet. As the piece de resistance , he rigged up two webcams so that surfers could watch every moment of Frank’s recovery.

What took everyone by surprise was just how many people seemed interested in the injured cat’s plight. Within minutes of going public, the site was getting two thousand hits per minute. Unknown to Frank, who spent most of his time sleeping, close to five million people logged on to check up on him. But it couldn’t last forever. Once the feline regained enough strength to get around on his own, he would no longer lie obligingly in front of the webcams for his fans.

Shortly after Frank’s recovery, the live site was taken off the Web. In the aftermath, more than a few social commentators scratched their heads about what made it so popular. “It’s just one of those things that has been blown out of all proportion,” Donna told the BBC. The project did produce one unlooked-for benefit, however. A mysterious couple had assisted Frank shortly after his accident, probably saving his life. When they spotted him on the Internet, they got in touch with Donna, who arranged a meeting between the cat and his benefactors.

GRIMALKIN: The celebrated pet of French astrologer Nostradamus. Grimalkin was also the name of the witches’ cat in Macbeth .

DELILAH: The favored pet of Freddie Mercury, front man for the famed British rock group Queen. The female tortoiseshell was immortalized in the song “Delilah,” on the band’s 1991 album Innuendo. The lyrics, while enumerating her good qualities, also take her to task for peeing in the house .

RUPI: The pet of Jethro Tull founder Ian Anderson and inspiration for the title song of his 2004 solo album Rupi’s Dance.

JELLYLORUM: The feline owned by T. S. Elliot, who served as the inspiration for (and appears in) the book Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The collection of poems spawned the musical Cats.

KAROUN: Cat owned by famed French writer and film director Jean Cocteau. The distinctly feline makeup used for the Beast in his famous 1946 version of Beauty and the Beast was reportedly influenced by Karoun’s features .

Cats who live aboard ships need more than the usual amount of intestinal fortitude. They spend their lives surrounded by water, and if their ship happens to be a vessel of war, they may face combat as well.

Such was the case for Simon, who “served” aboard the British destroyer HMS Amethyst . He displayed such fortitude in the face of battle, loss, and injury that he became the first cat in English history to receive a medal for courage under fire.

He was born inauspiciously, on an island off the coast of Hong Kong. His sea service began in March 1948, when a sailor smuggled him aboard the Amethys t. He became a favorite of the captain, accompanying him on rounds and even sleeping in his cap. Simon was also an expert rat hunter, often laying out his kills at the feet of his commanding officer.

In 1949, the Amethyst received a new captain, who also appreciated Simon’s company. The ship then got a new, more dangerous assignment. Mainland China was in the throes of the communist revolution, and the ship was to sail up the Yangtze River to Nanking to guard the British embassy and to evacuate the staff if Mao Zedong’s forces took the town.