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The history of Biological Warfare(BW), like most topics, can be divided into 3 parts: Early History, Modern History, and what we call "The Now." The early history starts as far back as you can think and continues up to the start of the 20th century.

Early History

The first recorded use of biological agents was by the Romans, using dead animals to foul the water supply of their enemies. This had the dual effects of decreasing enemy numbers and lowering morale. The idea behind this kind of attack is that a weakened enemy is an easily defeated enemy. The Tartars had the idea of infecting the enemy by catapulting bodies infected with bubonic plague over the walls of the city of Kaffa. Some historians believe that this event was the cause of the epidemic of plague that swept across medieval Europe killing 25 million. A more recent use of BW involves the British during the French-Indian War. The Native Americans greatly outnumbered the British and were suspected of being on the side of the French. As an "act of good will" the British gave blankets to the Indians, but the blankets came from a hospital that was treating smallpox victims and, consequently, smallpox raged through the Native American community and devastated their numbers. There are, no doubt, numerous other anecdotes of historical use of biological weapons not covered here.

    Modern History

    The modern history of BW starts in 1918 with the Japanese formation of a special section of the Army (Unit 731) dedicated to BW. The thought at the time was "Science and technology are the keys to winning the war and BW is the most cost effective."  In 1931, Japan expanded its territory by taking over part of Manchuria and Unit 731 moved in to secure "an endless supply of human experiment materials." Essentially all prisoners of war were available for BW experiments. Then, in 1941, Japanese planes sprayed bubonic plague over parts of China. At least 5 separate instances of this occurring have been documented. In 1942 "bacterial bombs" were deployed on mainland China but these attacks were determined to be ineffective. At this point, the United States became aware of the Japanese efforts and decided to start its own program. These acts were not the only atrocities committed, however. The Japanese released thousands of plague infested rats prior to their surrender, with unknown consequences. They also tested on American POW's during the war, and the U.S. Government apparently knew about it, but did nothing (perhaps a worse atrocity.)  What they did instead was offer immunity to would-be war criminals in exchange for the information the Japanese learned from these experiments. So, in effect, the U.S. BW program grew, in part, out of the loss of U.S. lives. The end of W.W.II brought on a new era in world politics and BW was intimately linked to the Cold War.

    At this time Great Britain was also developing a program in BW. It was started with the fear that Germany and Japan would have an advantage in this area. The program focused on anthrax spores and their viability and "range of spread " when delivered with a conventional bomb. The fateful Gruinard Island off the coast of Scotland was chosen as the site for this testing. It was thought that it was far enough off the coast to prevent any contamination of the mainland; this later turned out to be false. The data gathered from these experiments was used by both Great Britain and the U.S. to develop bombs that were better able to effectively disperse spores. After an outbreak of anthrax in sheep and cattle in 1943 on the coast o f Scotland that directly faced Gruinard, the British decided to stop testing. A tragic consequence of this testing is that even today Gruinard Island is contaminated with Bacillus anthracis spores. The original idea for decontamination was to start a brushfire that burned off the top of the soil and killed all traces of the organisms. Unfortunately, the spores unexpectedly embedded themselves in the soil so total decontamination of the island was and still is impossible. As long as no ground is disturbed, supposedly we are safe.  Of course, birds that travel back and forth from mainland to island probably don't know this.

    The U.S. program of BW started in 1942. With the acquisition of the Japanese data and the increased tensions of the cold war, the U.S. program accelerated in activity and grew in size. In 1956 the former Soviet Union accused the U.S. of using biological weapons in Korea, which lead them to threaten future use of Chemical and Biological weapons. This changed the focus of the U.S. program to a more defensive one. Before this, the bulk of the research was based at Ft. Detrick and used "surrogate biological agents" to model more deadly organisms. Most of the offensive tests were based on "secret spraying" of organisms over populated areas. This program was shut down in 1969.   One of the biggest experiments involved the use of Serratia marcescens being sprayed over San Francisco. This organism is especially useful because it produces a red/pink pigment when grown on certain media, which makes identification very easy. At one point, 5000 particles/minute were sprayed from the coastal areas inward. During this time, one man died (in the hospital) and 10 others became infected in what was described as "a mystery to doctors." Although the military never did many follow up studies on these tests, the result was that it showed nearly every single person became infected with the test organism. In hindsight, now that some of this information has become declassified, it's been shown that during periods following spraying tests, there were 5-10 times the normal infections reported. Other experiments included tests on Minneapolis that were disguised as "smoke screen tests" because residents were told a harmless smoke was being tested so that cities might be 'hidden' from radar guided missiles. In 1966 Bacillus subtilis was released into the subway system of New York City to determine how vulnerable it was to attack. Results showed that the entire underground tunnel system could be infected by release in only one station due to the winds created by the trains. The bulk of the BW experiments conducted by the U.S. during this time all pointed to two things: the U.S. was highly susceptible to a biological weapon attack and that there was really nothing we could do about it.

    On the Soviet side of things, aside from a few allegations of use, the BW program of the U.S.S.R. was kept relatively quiet. In 1979, however, there was an explosion at a plant in Sverdlosk and an outbreak of anthrax followed. At the time, all accusations of BW research were vigorously denied by Soviet officials, with the explanation that anthrax outbreaks can occur naturally and that the explosion was merely a coincidence. In 1992, Boris Yeltsin confirmed that anthrax was being researched at Sverdlosk and vowed to stop all "Soviet" BW research. Unfortunately, defectors have contradicted Yeltsin and there are rumors that although the 'official government' statement and ideal may be an elimination of biological weapons, the military is still actively pursuing a BW program on its own. Supposedly they are working independently of any governmental control and are seeking to development a "super virus" of unknown capabilities (this thing won't crash computers, that's for sure!)

The Now

The most recent concern of BW has come from developing countries. During the Persian Gulf War to liberate Kuwait, U.S. troops were immunized against anthrax (contrary to official statements). Saddam Hussein was known to have a BW program but its scope and size was miscalculated, as you'll see later.

The End