1600s

• Whaling as an industry did not begin until the 1600s, when the English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Danish and Basque all launched whaling ships. There was so much fighting between the nations that before long, each whaling expedition was accompanied by warships to protect the precious cargo. The whalers had to establish land bases close to their fishing spots in order to render the blubber into oil until the mid-century when the fighting became so fierce that they abandoned their land bases and returned to their home port for rendering.
  
  

1700s

• In the 1700s, the U.S. joined the whaling industry, and it became the first international industry in the United States. Christopher Hussey, a Nantucket whaler, killed the first sperm whale taken by an American. At first, whalers operated only off the East Coast, but by 1750, they were making expeditions farther afield, traveling in groups of up to 10 ships to areas such as Baffin Island, Greenland and Spitsbergen.
  
  

1800s

• In the 1800s, there were three documented cases of ships being sunk by whales. The Essex of Nantucket was sunk when it was rushed by a giant whale in 1819. In June 1841, an enraged sperm whale attacked a group of whalers off the coast of the Galapagos Islands and crushed two of them with its jaws. There were few survivors, as most whalers could not swim.
  
  

1900s

• In the 1900s, the demand for whale oil and whale bone was rapidly declining, as was the supply of whales. Some species went extinct. Others, such as the Bowhead, were put on the endangered species list by the International Whaling Commission and have managed to come back to a certain extent. While the Bowhead cannot be hunted commercially, native peoples can hunt them for food. Environmentalists took to the oceans in beginning in the 1960s and in 1986 sunk two Icelandic whaling ships. The ships were not carrying any crew.
  
  

2000s

• There are few whaling ships today other than for sightseeing, but Japan created a huge public outcry when it announced that it would begin hunting the Humpback whale again in 2006.