Find out more about the history of Battles of Lexington and Concord, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts. The first use of horses in warfare occurred over 5,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of horses ridden in warfare dates from Eurasia between 40 BC. Cambridge Core - Twentieth Century Regional History - The Cambridge History of the First World War - edited by Jay Winter.
Biological warfare - Wikipedia. Biological warfare (BW)—also known as germ warfare—is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with the intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war. Biological weapons (often termed "bio- weapons", "biological threat agents", or "bio- agents") are living organisms or replicating entities (viruses, which are not universally considered "alive") that reproduce or replicate within their host victims. Entomological (insect) warfare is also considered a type of biological weapon. This type of warfare is distinct from nuclear warfare and chemical warfare, which together with biological warfare make up NBC, the military acronym for nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare using weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). None of these are conventional weapons, which are deployed primarily for their explosive, kinetic, or incendiary potential. Biological weapons may be employed in various ways to gain a strategic or tactical advantage over the enemy, either by threats or by actual deployments.
Notes † I worked out many of these ideas as I drafted a chapter for a forthcoming college textbook of big history (McGraw-Hill, 2011). Other authors of this. Biological warfare (BW)—also known as germ warfare—is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with the intent to. · Air warfare is the ability to disable an opponent's military using strategic strikes from manned and unmanned aircraft. RAND has extensive experience evaluating and. 'The revised Cambridge Ancient History is a brilliant achievement for undergraduate, scholar and informed layman alike; up-to-date, authoritative, readable but never.
The Cambridge History Of Warfare Review
Like some of the chemical weapons, biological weapons may also be useful as area denial weapons. These agents may be lethal or non- lethal, and may be targeted against a single individual, a group of people, or even an entire population. They may be developed, acquired, stockpiled or deployed by nation states or by non- national groups. In the latter case, or if a nation- state uses it clandestinely, it may also be considered bioterrorism.[1]There is an overlap between biological warfare and chemical warfare, as the use of toxins produced by living organisms is considered under the provisions of both the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Toxins and psychochemical weapons are often referred to as midspectrum agents.
Unlike bioweapons, these midspectrum agents do not reproduce in their host and are typically characterized by shorter incubation periods.[2]The use of biological weapons is prohibited under customaryinternational humanitarian law,[3] as well as a variety of international treaties.[4] The use of biological agents in armed conflict is a war crime.[5]Overview[edit]Offensive biological warfare, including mass production, stockpiling, and use of biological weapons, was outlawed by the 1. Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). The rationale behind this treaty, which has been ratified or acceded to by 1. April 2. 01. 3,[6] is to prevent a biological attack which could conceivably result in large numbers of civilian casualties and cause severe disruption to economic and societal infrastructure.[citation needed] Many countries, including signatories of the BWC, currently pursue research into the defense or protection against BW, which is not prohibited by the BWC.
Find out more about the history of Massachusetts, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com. Trinity College is an educational institution comprising 180 Fellows and nearly 1,000 students. The College welcomes visitors to Great Court and the Chapel for most. Theodoric, King of the Visigoths : Goths. Goths, ancient Teutonic people, who in the 3rd to the 6th century AD were an important power in the Roman world.
A nation or group that can pose a credible threat of mass casualty has the ability to alter the terms on which other nations or groups interact with it. Biological weapons allow for the potential to create a level of destruction and loss of life far in excess of nuclear, chemical or conventional weapons, relative to their mass and cost of development and storage. Therefore, biological agents may be useful as strategic deterrents in addition to their utility as offensive weapons on the battlefield.[7][8]As a tactical weapon for military use, a significant problem with a BW attack is that it would take days to be effective, and therefore might not immediately stop an opposing force. Some biological agents (smallpox, pneumonic plague) have the capability of person- to- person transmission via aerosolizedrespiratory droplets. This feature can be undesirable, as the agent(s) may be transmitted by this mechanism to unintended populations, including neutral or even friendly forces. While containment of BW is less of a concern for certain criminal or terrorist organizations, it remains a significant concern for the military and civilian populations of virtually all nations. History[edit]Rudimentary forms of biological warfare have been practiced since antiquity.[9] During the 6th century BC, the Assyrians poisoned enemy wells with a fungus that would render the enemy delirious.
In 1. 34. 6, the bodies of Mongol warriors of the Golden Horde who had died of plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged Crimean city of Kaffa. Specialists disagree over whether this operation may have been responsible for the spread of the Black Death into Europe.[1.
The British Army used smallpox against Native Americans during the Siege of Fort Pitt in 1. An outbreak that left as many as one hundred Native Americans dead in Ohio Country was reported in 1.
The spread of the disease weakened the natives' resistance to the British troops led by Henry Bouquet. It is not clear, however, whether the smallpox was a result of the Fort Pitt incident or the virus was already present among the Delaware people.[1. It has been claimed that the British Marines used smallpox in New South Wales in 1. By 1. 90. 0 the germ theory and advances in bacteriology brought a new level of sophistication to the techniques for possible use of bio- agents in war. Biological sabotage—in the form of anthrax and glanders—was undertaken on behalf of the Imperial German government during World War I (1. The Geneva Protocol of 1.
With the onset of World War II, the Ministry of Supply in the United Kingdom established a BW program at Porton Down, headed by the microbiologist Paul Fildes. The research was championed by Winston Churchill and soon tularemia, anthrax, brucellosis, and botulism toxins had been effectively weaponized. In particular, Gruinard Island in Scotland, was contaminated with anthrax during a series of extensive tests for the next 5. Although the UK never offensively used the biological weapons it developed on its own, its program was the first to successfully weaponize a variety of deadly pathogens and bring them into industrial production.[2. Other nations, notably France and Japan, had begun their own biological weapons programs.[2. When the USA entered the war, Allied resources were pooled at the request of the British and the U.
S. established a large research program and industrial complex at Fort Detrick, Maryland in 1. George W. Merck.[2. The biological and chemical weapons developed during that period were tested at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. Soon there were facilities for the mass production of anthrax spores, brucellosis, and botulism toxins, although the war was over before these weapons could be of much operational use.[2.
Shiro Ishii, commander of Unit 7. The most notorious program of the period was run by the secret Imperial Japanese Army. Unit 7. 31 during the war, based at Pingfan in Manchuria and commanded by Lieutenant General Shirō Ishii. This unit did research on BW, conducted often fatal human experiments on prisoners, and produced biological weapons for combat use.[2.
Although the Japanese effort lacked the technological sophistication of the American or British programs, it far outstripped them in its widespread application and indiscriminate brutality. Biological weapons were used against both Chinese soldiers and civilians in several military campaigns.[2. In 1. 94. 0, the Japanese Army Air Force bombed Ningbo with ceramic bombs full of fleas carrying the bubonic plague.[2. Many of these operations were ineffective due to inefficient delivery systems,[2. During the Zhejiang- Jiangxi Campaign in 1.
Japanese troops died out of a total 1. Japanese soldiers who fell ill with disease when their own biological weapons attack rebounded on their own forces.[2. During the final months of World War II, Japan planned to use plague as a biological weapon against U. S. civilians in San Diego, California, during Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night.
The plan was set to launch on 2. September 1. 94. 5, but it was not executed because of Japan's surrender on 1. August 1. 94. 5.[3. In Britain, the 1. The United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories weaponized anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, Q- fever and others.[citation needed]In 1. UK and the Warsaw Pact, separately, introduced proposals to the UN to ban biological weapons, and US President Richard Nixon terminated production of biological weapons, allowing only scientific research for defensive measures.
The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention was signed by the US, UK, USSR and other nations, as a ban on "development, production and stockpiling of microbes or their poisonous products except in amounts necessary for protective and peaceful research" in 1. However, the Soviet Union continued research and production of massive offensive biological weapons in a program called Biopreparat, despite having signed the convention.[3. By 2. 01. 1, 1. 65 countries had signed the treaty and none are proven—though nine are still suspected[3.
BW programs.[3. 6]Modern BW operations[edit]Offensive[edit]It has been argued that rational state actors would never use biological weapons offensively. The argument is that biological weapons cannot be controlled: the weapon could backfire and harm the army on the offensive, perhaps having even worse effects than on the target.
An agent like smallpox or other airborne viruses would almost certainly spread worldwide and ultimately infect the user's home country. However, this argument does not necessarily apply to bacteria. For example, anthrax can easily be controlled and even created in a garden shed; the FBI suspects it can be done for as little as $2,5. Also, using microbial methods, bacteria can be suitably modified to be effective in only a narrow environmental range, the range of the target that distinctly differs from the army on the offensive.
Thus only the target might be affected adversely. The weapon may be further used to bog down an advancing army making them more vulnerable to counterattack by the defending force.