1941
Shark Week is officially declared a federal holiday, largely owing to the popularity of the idea as generated by American novelist Sarah Josepha Hale, and as a stopgap measure to appease ravenous gangs of hungry sharks which had terrorized the expanse of the United States ever since Edison started making them pop out of telephone wires for a laugh.
1954
Following the landmark court case, Sharks vs The Board of Education (there were no survivors), The United States federal government steps in to eradicate segregation in its public school system. A program is instituted which busses sharks from outlying districts to schools which were traditionally attended solely by white and human students.
The initiative meets fierce resistance from every branch of society. Strom Thurmond stages a legendary record-breaking filibuster on the Senate floor, stopping only to be violently consumed by a longfin mako which had been masquerading as a Senate page.
The radical measure is met with mixed success; sharks are successfully integrated into human schools, but most of them suffocate. Only in an experimental, partially submerged high school in Cookeville, Tennessee did the sharks fare much better, but it goes without saying that the existing student body has paid a price of their own (There were no survivors).
1967
The long-standing cartilaginous fish/vertebrate primate barrier on television is shattered when William Shatner, as Starship Captain James T.Kirk, shares a passionate kiss with a tropical bullhead on an episode of Star Trek.
1978
Congressman Jim Walsh of New York recognizes the tireless efforts of Hermine B.Beckett Hanna of North Syracuse, by helping establishing on her behalf a national observance of "Grandparents Day", joining the holiday ranks of "Fathers Day" and "Mothers Day". When children inevitably ask their elders "When do SHARKS get a day of their own?", they are told "Oh, sweetheart, every day is Shark Day … during Shark Week, anyway."
Some Point Between 1996-2005
Your girlfriend dumps you right around Shark Week, leaving you to face all the happy couples celebrating Shark Week, and all the Shark Week decorations at your local department stores. Even when you decide to sulk at home, you can't avoid the television commercials just shoving Shark Week in your face over and over again. You start bitching to your friends about how Shark Week is just an excuse made up by Madison Avenue to sell greeting cards. They humor you.
2007
Right-wing pundits draw attention to a so-called secular "War on Shark Week". Particularly adamant in her defense of a return to Shark Week values is columnist Ann Coulter, which is understandable as she is, after all, one-quarter shark (on her mother's side of the family).
The Present Day
Shark Week is universally embraced as a choice time to kick some ass and hang loose. There are no survivors.
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR SHARK WEEK?
2012
Shark Week's popularity only continues to grow, and by this date is effectively the most popular holiday in the Western Hemisphere, unseating Christmas, the Fourth of July, and a bunch of bullshit holidays like Kwanzaa, Arbor Day and Rosh Hoshannah.
2033
Popular conservative quarter-shark (or "Sharktaroon") pundit Ann Coulter passes away when, stuck in slow-moving foot traffic on a New York city street, she is unable to continually move forward and suffocates.
2250
Using residual electrical power imbued upon them by Thomas Edison's early experiments, Sharks learn to convert their bodily mass to pure energy and take to the stars, spreading Shark Week to every corner of the universe. There are no survivors.
