The Highly Prolific History of Goats

Lance GeigerofThe History Guyrecounted the prolific history of goats, noting how they were the first livestock animal to be domesticated and exploited for human use.

Goats are generally considered to have been the second animal to be domesticated, only behind dogs, and the first to be domesticated as livestock. That is a thousand years before sheep, 1500 years before cattle, 3,000 years before pigs, 5,000 years before horses, and possibly 7,500 years before chickens.

Goats also played a huge part throughout the ages as a Norse god or a vehicle for casting off sins (escape goat = scapegoat), or a symbol of the devil. Goats also were very important in developing farmland in Europe and in the United States. Geiger also explains why the goat has become the mascot for the US Navy football team.

The Navy's first goat mascot, El Cid, was a pet aboard the cruiser New York. In 1893, New York crew members brought El Cid to Annapolis for the Army Navy game, which the Navy won. Midshipman attributed victory to the presence of the GOAT. And from this point onward, the US Navy Academy's tradition of having a goat as a mascot was born.

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