Animals that changed history

Hendryk

Banned
A long time ago I came across a cartoon by Gary Larson showing two cows looking from their meadow at a city burning in the distance, and one saying to the other: "Agent X-231 has completed her mission" (or something to that effect). It would be a while later that I learned of the urban legend of the Great Chicago Fire having been started by a cow.

So now I'm wondering. Are there historically corroborated instances of animals causing far-reaching events?
 

MrP

Banned
Well, the first thing that springs to mind is the Dickin Medal.

The Dickin Medal was instituted in 1943 by Maria Dickin to honour the work of animals in war. It is a large bronze medallion, bearing the words "For Gallantry" and "We Also Serve" within a laurel wreath, carried on ribbon of striped green, dark brown and pale blue. Traditionally, the medal is presented by the Lord Mayor of London. It has become recognised as "the animals' Victoria Cross".[1] As of February 2008, it has been awarded 62 times.[1]

It's occasionally ridiculed on the grounds that some people feel animals can't be expected to show bravery.
List of winners

World War II era
  • 1943: Winkie - first pigeon to be awarded the medal; flew 120 miles from a crashed bomber to deliver an SOS
  • 1943: Ruhr Express - a messenger pigeon
  • 1944: Commando - a messenger pigeon
  • 1944: Paddy - messenger pigeon that made the fastest recorded crossing of the English Channel, delivering messages from Normandy for D-Day, travelling 230 miles in 4 hours 5 minutes.
  • 1944: William of Orange used in Battle of Arnhem in September 1944 saving 2000 soldiers
  • 1945: Rex - A rescue dog was officially recorded to have saved 65 people in London's flying bomb blitz.
  • 1946: G.I. Joe - a messenger pigeon that saved many people's lives in World War II.
  • 1946: Judy - the only animal to have been officially registered as a Japanese prisoner of war.
  • 1947: Olga, Upstart and Regal - three police horses involved in incidents following German bombing raids in, the first two involving flying bombs and the third an attack involving explosive incendiaries
  • 1949: Simon - the ship's cat on HMS Amethyst during the Yangtze Incident, noted for surviving injuries from a cannon shell, raising morale and killing off a rat infestation during the incident, by doing this duty despite being wounded. Rank raised to "Able Seacat" and awarded campaign medal. The medal was sold by the Royal Navy and is now a valuable collectors item, partly because Simon has been the only cat to win the medal.

  • Modern era
  • 2000: Gander - a Newfoundland dog serving with Canadian infantry in Hong Kong in 1941
  • 2002: Salty and Roselle - guide dogs who separately led their owners to safety from the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks [3]
  • 2002: Appollo - a search and rescue dog with the New York Police Department, as a representative of all such dogs who worked at the World Trade Center site and the Pentagon in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks [3]
  • 2003: Sam - a Royal Army Veterinary Corps dog serving with The Royal Canadian Regiment in Bosnia-Herzegovina, for separately disarming a gunman and later holding back a hostile crowd while guarding a refugee compound until reinforcements arrived
  • 2003: Buster - a Royal Army Veterinary Corps arms and explosives search dog serving with the Duke of Wellington's Regiment in Iraq, for finding an extremist group's hidden arsenal of weapons and explosives
  • 2007: Sadie - a Royal Army Veterinary Corps arms and explosives search black Labrador dog serving in Afghanistan, for finding a bomb planted underneath sandbags, yards from where a suicide car bombing had earlier killed a German soldier outside the United Nations headquarters in Kabul in November 2005[4]
 

Thande

Donor
The Pig War (which of course wasn't, but it could have been)

I believe a herd of European bison tore through a German army in WW1 and caused considerable damage...
 
How about the birds that Columbus saw flying for the mainland? Without them, he would have landed at a different place in the Caribbean.

Not to mention the butterfly that flaps its wings in China.
 
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I know it isn't really, but there was that myth that Catherine the Great was killed while attempting to have sex with a horse. might not be the biggest change in history, but it is amusing.
 
- The monkey that bite Alexander I of Greece in 1920, leading to the king's death by sepsis and his replacement by the unpopular Constantine I, in the middle of the unpopular Greco-Turkish War.

- The bear that ate King Favila of Asturias in 739, ironically during a bear hunting.

I believe a herd of European bison tore through a German army in WW1 and caused considerable damage...

We know now why there wasn't any bison alive in Poland at the end of the Great War. :rolleyes:
 
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