If it wasn’t for Peter Benchley’s Jaws and, especially, Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of the 1974 novel, it is likely that the 1916 Jersey Shore shark attacks would have slipped into the dustbin of history along with the Great Boston Molasses Flood, the Astor Place Riot and the Bath School Massacre.
The what?
Exactly.
It would seem in retrospect that the shark attacks would naturally be the stuff of legend. They were bloody, leaving four people dead: Charles Epting Vansant in Beach Haven on July 1, Charles…
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