Chemical Weapons Timeline

By MichaelKirk9
  • 400

    Trojan War

    In the Trojan War, they would poison arrows and spears so that they would kill faster and more efficently.
  • Dec 6, 1252

    Calcium Oxide

    English Navy destroyed an invading French fleet, by blinding the enemy fleet with "quicklime," the old name for calcium oxide which is very leathal.

  • Cyanide

    Lyon Playfair proposed a cacodyl cyanide artillery shell for use against enemy ships as way to solve the stalemate during the siege of Sevastopol.

  • World War 1

    More than 124,000 tons of gas were produced by the end of World War I. The French were the first to use chemical weapons during the First World War, using the tear gases, ethyl bromoacetate and chloroacetone.

  • Arsenic Gas

    The Royal Air Force dropped arsenic gas on Bolshevik troops during the British intervention in the Russian Civil War.

  • Dr. Hugo Stoltzenberg

    Poison gas expert Dr. Hugo Stoltzenberg negotiated with the USSR to build a huge chemical weapons plant at Trotsk, on the Volga river.

  • Holocaust

    Chemical Weapons were used in the Genocide of the Holocaust

  • Ship Sinking

    German Ju 88 bombers attacked the port of Bari in Southern Italy, sinking several American ships. Among them SS John Harvey, which was carrying mustard gas intended for use in retaliation by the Allies if German forces initiated gas warfare.

  • World War 2

    Leathal nerve agents like mustard gas became widley popular

  • Brittish Chemical Defence

    British postwar chemical weapons research was based at the Porton Down facility. Research was aimed at providing Britain with the means to arm itself with a modern nerve agent based capability and to develop specific means of defence.

  • VX

    The U.S. Army patented a process for the "Preparation of Toxic Ricin", publishing a method of producing this powerful toxin known a VX.

  • Terrosism

    For many terrorist organizations, chemical weapons might be considered an ideal choice for a mode of attack, if they are available: they are cheap, relatively accessible, and easy to transport. A skilled chemist can readily synthesize most chemical agents if the precursors are available.