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Unit 6—Handout 2
Timeline - Biological and Chemical Warfare in the 20th century
While limited use of chemicals and disease in warfare dates from ancient times, the origins of modern
chemical and biological weapons systems date from the era of the two world wars. The term chemical warfare
came into use with the gas warfare of World War I, and modern biological warfare dates from the weapons
systems fi rst introduced in the 1930s.
1914-1918 WWI Following the fi rst successful German gas attack with chlorine in the WWI battle
at Ypres in 1915, the British, French, and, in 1918, the U.S. army responded with gases including phosgene,
mustard gas, hydrogen cyanide, and cyanogen chloride. Initially spread from portable cylinders by the opening
of a valve, delivery systems were extended to mortars and guns. In 1918, the U.S. War Department established
the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) as part of the wartime, but not the regular, army.
1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting chemical weapons. Signed but not ratifi ed by the U.S. or Japan.
1930s and 1940s Japan experiments with biological agents and uses biological weapons in China
and Manchuria.
1942 On Gruinard Island, off the coast of Scotland, the British conduct anthrax tests on sheep. Today,
the uninhabited island is believed still to be infected with anthrax spores.
Nov. 25, 1969 At Fort Detrick, Maryland, President Richard Nixon announces a new national policy
on bio-warfare: “The U.S. shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods
of biological research.” Nixon pledges the nation will never use biological weapons under any circumstances.
The entire U.S. arsenal is destroyed by 1973, except for seed stocks held for research purposes.
1972 The Biological Weapons Convention is established. The treaty prohibits the research, development,
and production of offensive biological weapons. The treaty does allow defensive work in the area of biological
weapons. The Soviet Union and the United States both ratify the pact.
1979 An unusual anthrax outbreak in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk kills at least 64 people. The Soviet
government blames the outbreak on contaminated meat, but there is suspicion within the international
scientifi c and intelligence communities that the Sverdlovsk outbreak was caused by an accidental release
of anthrax spores from a nearby suspected biological weapons facility. All evidence available to the U.S.
government indicates a massive release of aerosolized B. anthrax spores. In 1992, Russian President Boris
Yeltsin acknowledges that the incident was indeed related to the microbiology facility.
1992 The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) reinforces aspects of the Geneva Conventions that
also dealt with these agents and was negotiated over a period of 24 years. In 1992, after a decade of long
and painstaking negotiations, the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva agreed to the text of the CWC,
which was adopted by the General Assembly on 30 November 1992, in its resolution entitled Convention on
the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their
Destruction (A/RES/47/39).
More than 170 countries have signed the CWC, and 139 have ratifi ed it. The treaty entered into force
on April 29, 1997, 180 days after Hungary, the 65th country, ratifi ed. Countries that ratify must destroy all
chemical weapons over a ten year period with the treaty providing a “leveling out principle” that ensures
possessors destroy their stockpiles at roughly the same time.
China ratifi ed the CWC on 25 April 1997; China has declared possession of former chemicals
weapons production facilities; initial inspections have been conducted.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=128610&page=1
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