What the CIA, Julia Child and Shark Repellent Have in Common
— -- As "Shark Week"draws to an end, the Central Intelligence Agency offered up a most unusual, yet fascinating history lesson to mark the occasion on its Twitter account.
While the operators of the spy agency's Twitter account have taken comedic, if sometimes perplexing, liberties with their social media activity in the past, none so far may top this GIF of TV cooking guru Julia Child clubbing a dead shark.
Even without context, the three-second clip is mesmerizing enough, but the CIA account then proceeded to outline how a young Julia Child once made her mark on U.S. history outside of the culinary arts.
According to records from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Child joined the CIA's origin agency, the Office of Strategic Services, just after it was established during World War II in 1942.
One of the first tasks taken on by the agency was to create a shark repellent, after news reports of shark attacks on sailors and airmen began surfacing in battlefield updates.
Years before she discovered her passion for crafting cuisine, Child was a member of a team looking to concoct a "recipe" that would steer away one of nature’s most determined predators.
The final product would be used by the Navy until the 1970s, by which time Child had made her way inside the homes of millions of Americans through her television shows and world-renowned cookbooks.
Clearly satisfied with itself by the end of its Tweet-story lesson, the CIA again shared the Child GIF, and then even got a shout-out from the official "Shark Week" account.
Read the whole story on the CIA's website here.
