IF YOU’RE MISERABLE AT YOUR LIFE, DON’T READ ANY FURTHER

THE HISTORY QUIZ WEBSITE recently posted “Get a Purr-fect Score on This History of Cats Quiz.” Being as I am a cat-loving grandfather, I recall the asinine comment made by JD Vance about “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.” 

Quelle jackass.

And, of course, I was happy to take this History Quiz, as well as to glean feline tidbits from it and other sources. If you’re so inclined, take the quiz first and then return here. By the way, I got 20 of 22 correct. Full disclosure: No.8’s answer is in the writeup for No.1. But the latter said nothing about shaving eyebrows. 

Middle-Eastern Origins, Specifically Egypt. It’s “generally understood that cats entered human society about 9500 years ago, not long after people in the Middle East started farming.”

They’re adept at catching rats; the cats, not the farmers.

History Quiz adds, “In ancient Egypt, cats were revered as religious symbols, namely as the cat goddess, Bastet. But they were also cherished as family pets.”

Other Godly Felines. History Quiz notes, “Ancient Norse writer Snorri Sturlusson described the goddess Freyja by writing, ‘When she travels, she drives two cats and sits in a chariot.’”

Goddess Freyja’s propulsion purrs along. This and following images from History Quiz.

I wonder if the madcap adventures of Norse gods (see “Opera for Our Times”) are traceable to who is actually “driving.”

History Quiz also cites the Scottish Highlands Cat Sith, “the specter of a large black cat with a white spot on its chest… stealing the souls of unburied corpses. To keep the Cat Sith away, night watchers called Feill Fadalach guarded a corpse until burial. The watchers drew Cat Sith away with catnip and games. Debate remains as to if the Cat Sith was a fairy creature or a witch in feline form.”

I suspect that JD would blame the latter. Or maybe not, given his DEI opinions.

Presidential Felines. “Tabby and Dixie,” History Quiz recounts, “were gifts from Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, and Lincoln loved them. His wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, even once described cats as her husband’s ‘hobby’…. Lincoln also respected his cats’ intelligence, saying, ‘Dixie is smarter than my whole cabinet! And furthermore, she doesn’t talk back!’ ”

Ha. JD has certainly learned not to talk back to you-know-whom.

The Clinton family’s feline pal Socks inspired the defunct video game company Kaneko to devise “Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill.” History Quiz describes, “the game followed Socks as he discovered a nuclear launch unit in a foreign embassy and raced to alert the President of a nuclear attack. Unfortunately, Nintendo canceled the game right before its release, believing it wouldn’t sell.”

Socks the cat.

I wonder if anyone has invented any Trump video games? “Name That Gulf”? “Stiff the Workers”? “Sex and the Fitting Room”?  

Welcoming Cats. History Quiz notes, “Commonly known in western culture as a ‘waving cat,’ a maneki-neko is actually beckoning people to approach it. The statues have been around for centuries, first appearing in a woodblock in 1852.”

And today appearing in my study.

And, of course, there’s Hello Kitty, a charming young thing sans mouth “because she speaks with her heart.”

CATS on Broadway. History Quiz celebrates, “American poet T.S. Eliot was a lifelong cat lover, and in 1939, he published a book of poems all about cats, called Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. All of the songs in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats—first performed in 1981—are based on Eliot’s poems, and some song lyrics are taken from poems in their entirety.”

Image from catsmusical.fandom.com. 

I especially like “The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles,” which emphasizes the inherent superiority of feline intelligence compared to that of canines. 

An Award-Winning Motion-Picture Cat. History Quiz recounts, “The producers of the 1958 film Bell, Book, and Candle wanted a cat that had an Ava Gardner-type personality to play Pyewacket, the feline familiar to the star witch of the movie…. The Humane Society awarded Pyewacket the 1958 Picture Animal Top Star of the Year, or PATSY, award.”

My Pal, ∏wacket. Aka Pi for short when a Greek font isn’t handy, ∏wacket was a capture/fix/release feral in the backyard who later took up residence inside. 

My research assistant here at SimanaitisSays.

Thanks, History Quiz, for the good fun. Left for the reader: a Space Cat, a pal of Koko, origin of the name Tabby, and Hemingway many-toed felines. ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025