America got its first giant panda bear on this day in 1936, when New York City dress designer Ruth Harkness arrived in San Francisco by boat accompanied by a fuzzy little bundle of joy named Su Lin. Harkness had set off on a mission to fulfill her late husband's lifelong dream; two weeks after they'd married, he died in Shanghai of cancer while on a search for a live panda, so she took on the task herself. It was a long, long journey; it took her months to get to Shanghai, and even longer before she found herself in a bamboo forest where the creatures were known to live.
A few days in, they heard shouting and a gunshot. Her guide, a Chinese-American man named Quentin Young, assured Harkness that it was safe, and encouraged her to walk with him through a thick blanket of fog, where they came across a tiny, black-and-white ball of fur nestled in a hollowed-out tree. They named her Su Lin, after Young's sister-in-law, unaware that the cub was a male.
Getting little Su Lin out of the country wasn't easy. Harkness was stopped at the border and her furry companion was taken from her. She waited all night for the bear's release and then smuggled her out of the country, claiming the cub was a dog. Harkness lived with the panda in her apartment for months before selling her to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Sadly, Su Lin died of tuberculosis the next year.
You can learn more about Harkness and Su Lin in this article from the BBC.
