Top 10 Famous Animals

#10: Ham the Chimp

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Top 10 Strange Things Named After Famous People

Just months before Russia launched the first man into space, the US sent a chimp to do the job. Ham was trained by the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center - which also gave him his name - to be the first hominid in space. After being taught to do simple tasks, he was strapped into a spacecraft and launched where no man had ever gone before. Amazingly, he survived his re-entry and went on to live for 17 more years. His successful mission led to America’s first manned flights into outer space - and for that we will be forever grateful!

She was the killer whale who started it all. As the “first intentional live capture of a healthy orca,” Shamu became the namesake of SeaWorld’s orca shows and all the killer whales who subsequently performed in them, beginning with her first appearance in the mid-’60s. While the shows have raised controversy due to claims that the theme parks mistreat their animals, this doesn’t take away from the fact that the original Shamu made history. She was not only the fourth orca to ever successfully be captured, but she also managed to live and perform for 6 years after her first show.

Look, we all know that dogs are superheroes, but Balto took things to a whole new level. A Siberian husky, he was a sled dog in Alaska in the early 20th century. In 1925, a deadly outbreak of diphtheria threatened the small northern town of Nome. There being no other way to transport the antitoxin, authorities had to rely on a dog sled team to get the medicine there. In near whiteout conditions, Balto and several other teams of dog mushers fought the elements to save Nome. Though there were many brave dogs who made the trek, including Togo, who led one of the last and most dangerous parts of the run, the fact that Balto saved and led most of his team in the dark garnered him much attention. So much so that a statue of the hero was erected in New York’s Central Park.

The things this monkey must have seen. Bubbles the Chimpanzee was the pet of the world-famous king of pop, Michael Jackson. In the 1980s, Bubbles was purchased from a Texas research facility and became part of the Jackson family. The chimp would go on to travel the world and became an example of Jackson’s strange life. After maturing and becoming a large aggressive animal, Bubbles would be relocated to several different animal sanctuaries. He ultimately ended up in Florida’s Center for Great Apes, where he continues to live out his life. We wonder if he misses living like a pop star...

If you feel like you haven’t accomplished a lot in life, then you don’t want to hear about this horse. A little on the small side, Seabiscuit didn’t start his career very spectacularly, but he sure ended it well. The thoroughbred racehorse was raced an unusually high amount of times, and he didn’t win a single one of his first 17 races. He would go on to have a historic career and become one of the most famous racehorses ever, however, after auto entrepreneur Charles S. Howard bought him and paired him with a new trainer. Along with Tom Smith and main jockey Red Pollard, Seabiscuit became a champion, giving hope to an entire country during the Great Depression.

Named for the French phrase “dear friend,” Cher Ami was a homing pigeon who served with the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War I. During the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in 1918, the forces of Major Charles White Whittlesey were pinned down and shelled by unaware allies with friendly fire. Several other pigeons were sent with the message, but only Cher Ami made it through. She had been shot several times and partially blinded, and her leg had to be amputated, but she got the message across. She ended up saving nearly 200 men. For her efforts, she was given a wooden leg and returned to the United States.

Winning races and saving soldiers is great and all, but can those animals predict the future? Because Punxsutawney Phil can. Every year on February 2, the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania celebrates Groundhog Day with a festival. If Phil sees his shadow and goes back into his hole, then winter will last 6 more weeks. If he doesn’t see his shadow, then there will be an early spring. Lore states that the same Phil has been predicting the weather since 1886, and we’d like to believe it. The truth is, there have likely been multiple Phils since then, but who doesn’t like a little suspension of disbelief every now and again?

We’re starting to feel like our spot as the most intelligent species on the planet is precarious. Koko was a female gorilla born on the fourth of July in 1971. From a young age, she was trained to use American sign language by Dr. Francine Patterson. Though it’s disputed just how much she understood, it is generally thought that Koko had the vocabulary of a small child. That seems pretty smart, especially since we don’t know anyone that can speak gorilla. Like many thinking creatures, she loved cats and Robin Williams. Koko unfortunately passed away in June 2018, but dying at the age of 46, she actually lived longer than gorillas are usually expected to live.

Humans flying in space is impressive, but we have opposable thumbs and the ability to do math, neither of which dogs have. Despite these deficiencies, Laika became the first animal to orbit Earth and one of the first in space. At the time, people had no idea how living things would react in space, so the Soviet Space program set out to launch a dog into space. They found Laika as a stray and set about training her for space flight. After the Soviets launched the first satellite into space, they successfully put Laika into orbit with the Sputnik 2 mission in 1957. Sadly, she died from overheating during the spacecraft’s fourth orbit and as such, never made it back home. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions. Winnipeg [aka Winnie] Keiko Jumbo the Elephant

Dolly Parton is an American singer and songwriter… wait, wrong Dolly. Dolly the sheep was created by a process called nuclear transfer where DNA is taken and copied from one egg to another back in 1996. Dolly was the first mammal ever cloned from an adult cell. She lived until she was six years old before succumbing to cancer, along with lung disease and other health issues. Thankfully, she didn’t turn into some kind of evil science zombie and destroyed the human race. That’s always a possibility with science experiments! Instead, her life and creation led to the successful cloning of other large animals and helped push science another step forward.