Christian the Lion

In 1969, John Rendall and Anthony "Ace" Bourke, two Australians in London, bought a lion cub from the Harrods department store. They named him Christian and raised him at home and then in the basement of their furniture shop. When he grew too big, Born Free stars Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna suggested they ask conservationist George Adamson to return him to the wild in Kenya.

About a year later, in 1971, the two men went back, warned that Christian might not remember them. The documentary footage shows him approaching cautiously, then leaping up to wrap his front legs around their shoulders.

A clip of the reunion was posted on a fan website in 2002, picked up on MySpace and then on YouTube, where it became a worldwide sensation in 2008, more than 30 years after it was filmed.

The Born Free Foundation's upload with the full ending is embedded here. The video's success led Rendall and Bourke to revise and republish their book, A Lion Called Christian, in 2009.