BiodefenseEducation.org: History

History - An interview with Charles C. Mann

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 09:44:46 GMT

Indian Country - In this interview with Mann, author of the book '1491,' focuses on the impact disease had in the European colonization of the Americas.

History - Unit 731 and the Japanese Imperial Army's Biological Warfare Program

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:53:37 GMT

Sekai senso hanzai jiten - In the following careful resumé essay, the author concentrates on the organization and function of Unit 731.

History - Past pandemics that ravaged Europe

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 11:41:02 GMT

BBC - In 430BC, during the Peloponnesian war against their great rival Sparta, the people of Athens were hit by a deadly disease that has defied diagnosis to this day.

History - '1491': Vanished Americans

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 11:03:09 GMT

New York Times - Another review of the book '1491,' which amongst the many topics it covers shows how the native population of the Americas was devasted by diseases brought from Europe.

History - A Cultivated World

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:22:44 GMT

Washington Post - Reviews of the book version of 1491, which was published this month.

Seattle Times - "1491": Discovering what Americas were like before Columbus.

History - US paid for Japanese human germ warfare data

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 08:21:18 GMT

Australian Broadcasting Corporation- The United States gave money and other benefits to former members of Japanese germ warfare Unit 731 two years after the end of World War II to obtain data on human experiments the unit conducted in China.

History - 1491

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 10:05:46 GMT

The Atlantic - Before it became the New World, the Western Hemisphere was vastly more populous and sophisticated than has been thought-an altogether more salubrious place to live at the time than, say, Europe. What happened to this population? It was devastated by diseases carried by settlers from the Old World, including smallpox. A look at how disease can reshape a continent...

History - Germ Warfare

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 10:07:34 GMT

Globe and Mail - Chinese survivors of germ warfare are still suffering six decades later. The Japanese army's Unit 731 killed an estimated 250,000 people and left others diseased for life.

History - China to Japan: Be honest about germ warfare

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 10:54:02 GMT

Reuters - China criticized a Japanese court rejection of demands by Chinese plaintiffs for germ warfare compensation on Wednesday, allowing no let-up in tension between the neighbors over territory, regional influence and history.

History - Japan: No China germ war payout

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 09:48:38 GMT

Associated Press - A Japanese high court has rejected appeals by 180 Chinese demanding compensation for damage caused by Japan's World War II germ warfare program.

History - Tokyo court to rule on suit over germ warfare unit

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 11:46:14 GMT

Reuters - The Tokyo High Court was set to rule on Tuesday on a lawsuit by Chinese plaintiffs demanding that Japan's government pay compensation and apologize for the activities of the Imperial Japanese Army's biological warfare units including the infamous Unit 731.

History - Room spraying was bio-attack plan

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 11:29:40 GMT

BBC - UK Government scientists in the Cold War considered spraying civilians inside closed rooms to immunise them against biological attack.

History - Bioweapon threat still unclear

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:29:55 GMT

Miami Herald - Waffling language and intelligence gaps have clouded U.S. allegations that Cuba constitutes a bioweapons threat.

Here is a Timeline of Cuba's alleged bioweapons program.

History - False Flags, Ethnic Bombs and Day X

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 11:12:16 GMT

California Literary Review - Former Russian spy Alexander Kouzminov describes the surreal world of biological espionage.

History - Bringing Japan's biological war to light

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 09:27:03 GMT

Aljazeera - The latest round of anti-Japanese demonstrations in China may have started to wind down, but one woman's campaign against Japan's wartime legacy of biological warfare continues.

History - China Seeks UN Status for Japan Germ Warfare Unit Site

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 10:26:04 GMT

Reuters - China will seek UNESCO World Heritage protection for the ruins of a Japanese germ warfare center during World War II called Unit 731, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.

History - Bioterrorism: Fear, History and Reality

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 10:14:25 GMT

Boston College Chronicles - Prof. Jeanne Guillemin (Sociology), one of America's foremost authorities on the history of biological weaponry, is a senior fellow in the Security Studies Program at MIT and author, most recently, of Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism, newly released by Columbia University Press. In a recent interview with Chronicle staff writer Mark Sullivan, Guillemin discussed the origins of, and misconceptions surrounding, bioterrorism.

History - Thirty years on - the ban on biological weapons

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 10:27:15 GMT

Radio Netherlands - Thirty years ago, for the first time in history, an entire category of weapons of mass destruction was banned. On 26 March 1975, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention entered into force, ushering in an official prohibition on the use of these weapons. Now, three decades later, these weapons are in the news again because of their possible use by terrorists, while the treaty itself continues to reflect the Cold War era in which it was born.

History - South Africa retrial of 'Dr. Death' sought

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:21:56 GMT

Associated Press - The South African state on Monday applied to the Constitutional Court for the retrial of Wouter Basson, the alleged apartheid-era head of germ warfare and mastermind of schemes to poison and sterilize black opponents.

History - NZ-based ex-spy exposes Soviet secrets

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 10:21:00 GMT

Stuff - Former KGB spy and expert on biological warfare, Alexander Kouzminov, who has been living quietly in New Zealand for a decade, tells his story again on Soviet plans to use biological weapons against the West.

History - Russians knew West's germ warfare secrets

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 12:20:54 GMT

Daily Telegraph - Britain and America's most guarded germ warfare secrets have been known to the Russians for decades and spies continue to operate at the heart of the West's biotechnology industry, a former KGB spymaster says today. Alexander Kouzminov also discloses that covert Soviet sabotage agents prepared secret sites where phials of lethal bacteria would be left, ready to poison western military establishments, civilian settlements and even assassinate political leaders in the event of war with the Soviet Union.

History - The horrors of Unit 731 revisited

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 11:49:29 GMT

Asia Times - A review of the book "A Plague Upon Humanity: The Hidden History of Japan's Biological Warfare Program" by Daniel Barenblatt.

History - Serratia has dark history in region - Army test in 1950 may have changed microbial ecology

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 10:51:20 GMT

San Franciso Chronicle - In 1950, government officials believed that serratia did not cause disease. That belief was later used as a justification for a secret post-World War II Army experiment that became a notorious disaster tale about the microbe. The Army used serratia to test whether enemy agents could launch a biological warfare attack on a port city such as San Francisco from a location miles offshore.

History - Japan's sins of the past

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:46:20 GMT

The Guardian - The memories of Japanese biological attacks on China in the 1940s are still fresh. Many Chinese want an apology.

History - Onetime biological warrior's life poisoned by regret

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 12:36:05 GMT

Associated Press - A member of Japan's Unit 731 in northeast China in the 1930s and '40s, perhaps the most advanced biological weapons operation of its time, expresses his regret.

History - Biowarfare secrets of '50s, '60s buried at Fort Detrick

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 10:11:36 GMT

Baltimore Sun - From 1949 to 1969, at the jittery height of the Cold War, the biowarriors in the U.S. Army's Special Operations Division aton tested the nation's vulnerability to covert germ warfare - and devised weapons for secret biological attacks if the United States chose to mount them.

History - Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World.

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Tue, 04 May 2004 11:13:59 GMT

Naval War College Review - Another review of this book, from a military perspective.

History - Clues to the Deadly 1918 Flu Revealed

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Sat, 10 Apr 2004 11:06:17 GMT

[Journal of the American Medical Association] - For decades, the characteristics of the virus that caused the largest recorded outbreak of any infectious disease in history have remained mysterious. But now scientists have unveiled important structural properties of a key viral protein that may help explain why the 1918 "Spanish" influenza pandemic was so devastating, killing 20 to 40 million individuals worldwide.

History - Fatal exposure

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 10:51:45 GMT

Sydney Morning Herald - A documentary on germ warfare goes to the heart of the debate about weapons of mass destruction, writes Steve Meacham.

History - 'The Great Influenza' and 'Microbial Threats to Health': Virus Alert

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Sun, 14 Mar 2004 11:57:34 GMT

New York Times - Book reviews of two books describing the past and future threats from influenza.

History - Book Examines Japanese WW2 Biowar Program

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 12:27:58 GMT

Reuters - A look at the extensive biowarfare program conducted by Japan in World War II.

History - As disease raged, truth was another casualty

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 13:15:42 GMT

Boston Globe - Another review of "The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History" which is about the 1918 influenza epidemic.

History - The back story for the next flu pandemic

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 13:41:46 GMT

San Francisco Chronicle - A review of the book "The Great Influenza," about the 1918 flu.

History - Eye Of Newt And Toe of Frog: Biotoxins in Warfare

Michael P. D'Alessandro — Sat, 28 Feb 2004 12:56:06 GMT

StrategyPage - A history of the use of biological weapons in warfare.