ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Twelve Days of Terror

Okay kiddo, so imagine you are super excited for twelve days of Christmas, right? But in real life, there was something called the twelve days of terror. It happened a while ago, in 1916, in a place called New Jersey in America.

Now, during these twelve days, something really scary happened. There were shark attacks on people who were swimming in the ocean! Sharks are big fish with sharp teeth that can hurt people really badly. And when they attack, it can be very scary because they are very fast and powerful.

So during these twelve days, people who were swimming in the ocean were attacked by sharks. Some people even died because of the attacks. This made a lot of people really scared to go into the ocean, which is a place where people usually like to have fun and swim around.

People were so scared that they started to hunt and kill lots of sharks in the ocean, thinking that it would make them safe. But this was not a good thing to do, because sharks are important to the ecosystem of the ocean.

Eventually, people figured out how to be safe when swimming in the ocean, like not swimming alone and staying close to shore. And sharks started to come back into the ocean and be a part of the ecosystem again.

So that's what happened during the twelve days of terror, when people were scared of sharks attacking them in the ocean. But now we know how to be safe and still have fun in the ocean!