While social media is flooded with funny videos of felines, this anniversary seeks to protect an animal that has gone from being a god in Egypt to becoming the undisputed king of our homes.
Every August 8th, the internet goes into overdrive. Social media is flooded with videos of cats chasing laser lights, squeezing into tight cardboard boxes, or getting up to all sorts of mischief. But behind all the laughter on the screen, there’s a more serious reason.
International Cat Day was created in 2002 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). It wasn’t just established to share fun moments, but as a worldwide campaign to raise awareness about the health, protection, and welfare of these animals.
It is, in reality, a way of celebrating a relationship of thousands of years that has transformed this feline, which once hunted alone, into the undisputed king of our homes… And, let’s not kid ourselves, also of the internet.
The origin of cats.
For a long time, it was assumed that cats were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 10,000 years ago, just as agriculture was emerging. This theory seemed to be confirmed by a discovery in Cyprus: a 9,500-year-old grave where a human was buried alongside an eight-month-old cat.
This finding, originally published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), seemed to suggest that, since there were no felines naturally on the island, our ancestors had brought them there by boat. However, analysis of ancient DNA has changed this interpretation.
Because a genomic study from late 2025, which analyzed more than 200 samples of ancient felines from the last 10,000 years, revealed something unexpected: the cats that roamed Europe before 200 BC were identical to the European wild cats of the time, and not relatives of our current pets.
Thus, thanks to paleogenetics, we now know that the true ancestors of the modern domestic cat (Felis catus) actually came from North Africa, and that they did not set foot on continental Europe until about 2,000 years ago.
Furthermore, there is a major difference between cats and dogs or farm animals: cats were not selectively bred or crossbred; they domesticated themselves. By storing grain, early farmers attracted field mice. And the wild cats in the area, seeing so much easy prey together, began to approach the settlements.
For their part, humans readily accepted these silent hunters because they kept the crops safe. It was a pact of mutual benefit: free food for the cats in exchange for natural pest control.
From Egyptian gods to the “baby effect”.
It was in ancient Egypt that cats attained an unprecedented sacred status. During the late period of this civilization, they were considered the earthly representation of deities such as the goddess Bastet.
Respect for them was so strict in the lands of the Nile that the law had no mercy: anyone who killed a cat, even accidentally, faced the death penalty automatically.
But why do they continue to fascinate us today? Perhaps part of the answer lies in their appearance. According to the NIH study, cats have features in their heads (such as enormous eyes compared to their skull, a flat face, and a rounded forehead) that closely resemble those of a human newborn.
In behavioral biology, this is known as the “baby schema,” and it activates in our brain an automatic response of tenderness and an immediate desire to care for and protect them.
However, cats don’t just win us over with their looks, but also with their ability to understand us. Various experiments have shown that domestic cats can “cross-associate” our facial expressions with the tone of our voice; in other words, they are able to interpret our emotions.
Furthermore, they are very precise in their communication. They use different frequencies and intensities in their purring to change its meaning: it can be a sign of affection, but also an urgent request for food or a way to calm themselves when they feel pain, fear, or stress.
Physically, they are also amazing animals. Their famous ability to always land on their feet is due to the “righting reflex,” an innate physical response they begin to develop from the third week of life. And all this expressiveness translates into popularity in the digital world today.
The clearest example is that of Grumpy Cat (whose real name was Tardar Sauce). This cat, who had feline dwarfism and a jaw that gave her a permanently grumpy expression, went viral in 2012. From there, she starred in movies, made commercials for major pet food brands, and spawned a line of toys and books.
From worship to persecution.
However, the history of cats and humans has not always been easy. During the Middle Ages in Europe, these animals suffered constant persecution that nearly led to their extinction. They were wrongly associated with witchcraft, pagan rituals, and bad luck.
The situation escalated to such an extreme that Pope Gregory IX declared black cats to be allies of the devil. Unfortunately, this belief sparked a massive persecution in which thousands of felines were captured, mistreated, and burned at the stake across the continent.
And indeed, eliminating cats had very serious consequences: without their natural predator, rats multiplied rapidly and uncontrollably in the streets, pantries, and fields of Europe.
This plague of rodents, which carried fleas, facilitated the massive spread of the bacterium Yersinia pestis. This factor accelerated the arrival of the Black Death in the 14th century, one of the greatest demographic crises in history, which cost the lives of tens of millions of people.
For all these reasons, International Cat Day serves as a reminder that our coexistence with them has been a journey of mutual learning. Today, these companions not only dominate social media and our living spaces, but are also essential members of many families.
That’s why celebrating this day goes beyond simply enjoying their games online. Because caring for them is the best way to thank this little animal who, with its daily purring, has been teaching us, for millennia, the value of independence, curiosity, and mystery.
By Nora Cifuentes.
EFE / Reports.
