Biological Warfare

Dead Hourse

Apr 24, 1340

Attackers hurled dead horses and other animals by catapult at the castle of Thun L'Eveque in Hainault, in what is now northern France. The defenders reported that "the stink and the air were so abominable...they could not long endure" and negotiated a truce.

Tartars launched a siege of Caffa

Feb 17, 1346

a port on the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea, they suffered an outbreak of plague. Before abandoning their attack, they sent the infected bodies of their comrades over the walls of the city. Fleeing residents carried the disease to Italy, furthering the second major epidemic of "Black Death" in Europe.

Karlstein in Bohemia

Aug 19, 1422

attacking forces launched the decaying cadavers of men killed in battle over the castle walls. They also stockpiled animal manure in the hope of spreading illness. Yet the defense held fast, and the siege was abandoned after five months.

First true vaccine for smallpox

Jul 24, 1796

the practice of deliberately inoculating people with a mild form of the disease was established decades earlier. The British military likely employed such deliberate infection to spread smallpox among forces of the Continental Army.

World War 1

Mar 27, 1915

By the time of The Great War, the germ theory of disease was well established; scientists grasped how microbes such as bacteria and viruses transmit illness. During the war, German scientists and military officials applied this knowledge in a widespread campaign of biological sabotage.

World War 2

Sep 5, 1936

In occupied Manchuria, starting around 1936, Japanese scientists used scores of human subjects to test the lethality of various disease agents, including anthrax, cholera, typhoid, and plague. As many as 10,000 people were killed.