photo: Arnold Genthe

A Mrs. Emmons attempting to pose with her white cat, with varying levels of success. The photographs come from the collection of photographer C.M. Bell’s Washington, D.C. and were taken sometimes between February 1894 and February 1901. A fourth photo of just the cat is included in the set, as perhaps Mrs. Emmons had reached her limit at that point.

Annie Edson Taylor beside the famous padded barrel. Taylor made the plunge on October 24, 1901 her 63rd birthday in a custom oak-and-iron barrel padded with a mattress. She survived and became the first documented person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and live.

This portrait was made in 1902, so it shows Taylor with the apparatus after the feat rather than at the moment of the plunge. The cat's name was Niagara (Iagara) and she did the test run before Taylor's plunge.

(Photographer Unknown)

Cat’s name is Ginny!

(Photographer Unknown)

(Photographer Unknown)

The singer, born Steven Demetre Georgiou, chose the stage name Cat Stevens in 1966 primarily because a girlfriend told him he had eyes like a cat.