May 10 - Fintastic Friday!

In 2011, WhaleTimes teamed up with the scientists at the Shark Research Institute to raise awareness of the plight of sharks. Fintastic Friday always occurs on the 2nd Friday in May.

As many as 100 million sharks are killed every year for their fins. These sharks have little to no protection from the humans that slaughter them. Roughly 11 415 sharks die every hour. In many ecosystems, shark populations have plummeted 75-90 %.

Oregon, Washington, and California have joined Hawaii in passing shark protection laws as of 2011.

A great site for more information about sharks is "The Dorsal Fin": http://www.thedorsalfin.com/

Today is also Child Care Provider Day, Lupus Day, Windmill Day, and Military Spouse Appreciation Day.

Here are some interesting things that happened on this day in history:

- Columbus discovered the Cayman Islands in 1503.
- Jamaica was captured by the English in 1655.

- An unauthorized American citizens’ militia called the Green Mountain Boys, led by Ethan Allan and Benedict Arnold, took Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Crown Point over 2 days in 1775. The Forts were ideally located for controlling the waterways into Canada during the American Revolution.
- Banks in New York City suspended specie payments in 1837, meaning they would no longer redeem commercial paper in specie at full face value. Unemployment reached record levels, the recession lasting seven years. Became known as the "Panic of 1837".
- The capital of Canada was moved from Kingston to Montréal, Canada East in 1844.

- Victoria Woodhull became the 1st woman nominated for the US presidency in 1872. She was also a leader in the women's suffrage movement.

- Aaron Mosher, who became Canada's foremost exponent of national unionism, was born in Halifax County, Nova Scotia in 1881.
- J. Edgar Hoover became the first Director of the FBI in 1924.
- Celebrated Acadian novelist Antonine Maillet was born in Bouctouche, New Brunswick in 1929.

- Journalist and author Peter C. Newman was born in Vienna, Austria in 1929.
- The Nazis staged public book burnings in Germany in 1933.
- "Laverne & Shirley," aired for the last time on ABC-TV in 1983.
- Michael Ondaatje won the inaugural Trillium Book Award for his novel In the Skin of a Lion in 1987. He won again in 1992 for The English Patient.

- Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa's 1st black President in 1994.

- The Red Cross suspended all humanitarian work in Pakistan in 2012 after a worker was kidnapped and killed.

Stay tuned for our next, "On This Day in History"!