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From the Crimean War to the end of World War Two

Andrea Sella looks at the role chemists have played in the development of chemical weapons.

In the first of two programmes he looks back to the first attempts to ban the use of chemical weapons at the end of the 19th century. Heavily defeated in the Crimea, Russia succeeded in getting unanimous agreement at the 1899 Hague Convention that poison and poison weapons should be banned from warfare. But chemicals such as chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas were heavily used in the First World War by both sides. More substances were developed in the 1930s and 1940s but weren鈥檛 used in the battlefield in World War 2. Andrea Sella tells the stories of the chemists behind these developments.

Picture: GB Army soldiers train for biological and chemical warfare, Credit: 成人快手

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27 minutes

Last on

Mon 4 Mar 2019 00:32GMT

Broadcasts

  • Mon 25 Feb 2019 20:32GMT
  • Mon 25 Feb 2019 21:32GMT
  • Tue 26 Feb 2019 05:32GMT
  • Tue 26 Feb 2019 06:32GMT
  • Tue 26 Feb 2019 07:32GMT
  • Tue 26 Feb 2019 11:32GMT
  • Tue 26 Feb 2019 14:32GMT
  • Tue 26 Feb 2019 18:32GMT
  • Mon 4 Mar 2019 00:32GMT

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