Ship's cat
Blackie was HMS Prince of Wales'''s ship's cat.  He became famous during the Second World War.  Blackie's ship, Prince of Wales, carried Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic Ocean to Naval Station Argentia in Newfoundland in August 1941.  There, Churchill secretly met with the United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the two signed the Atlantic Charter.  But as Churchill started to leave Prince of Wales, Blackie came up to him.  Churchill bent down to say goodbye to Blackie, and the moment was photographed and reported in the world media.  In honour of the success of the visit, Blackie was renamed Churchill.  Blackie survived the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales later that year and was taken to Singapore with the survivors.  He could not be found when Singapore was evacuated the following year and nobody knows what happened to him (though there is a chance he may have died by then).