In 1969, two Australians named Ace Bourke and John Rendall did something unimaginable today: they bought a lion cub from Harrods department store in London. They named him Christian and raised him in their basement flat on King's Road, where he became a local celebrity, eating in restaurants and playing in the local church grounds. But as Christian grew into a 300-pound apex predator, Ace and John knew he belonged in the wild.

​They contacted conservationist George Adamson, who successfully rehabilitated Christian into the Kora National Park in Kenya. A year later, in 1971, the men returned to visit him. They were sternly warned by experts that it was a suicide mission; Christian was now the head of a wild pride and would likely see them as intruders or prey. Ignoring the advice, they flew to Kenya. The footage captures the tense moment

Christian spots them from a rock. He pauses, stares, and then—instead of attacking—he runs down the hill and throws his massive paws around their necks, hugging them and "groaning" with joy. He even introduced them to his wild lionesses, proving that love creates a memory that not even the wild can erase.