HISTORY: ORIGIN OF BIOLOGICAL WARFARE

The Mongols catapulted decomposing corpses of their own soldiers who had died from the bubonic plague

With all the attention Ebola is getting, it might be noteworthy to remember that the Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death, was a far deadlier disease. The plague was spread by rats, or rather by the infected fleas from rats, and killed millions of people.

And here is a bit of history. The plague led to the first recorded use of biological warfare. From the November 20 issue of Houston Press Hair Balls:

The Black Death is believed to have begun with the first recorded instance of germ warfare, described by the Centers for Disease Control as "the most spectacular of biological warfare ever." A Mongol army had been sitting outside of Caffa (now a part of Crimea) for years trying to get in. Well, as luck would have it, soldiers in the army started dying from a mysterious sickness, and, even though they were in the grips of plague and thus losing interest in the siege, the Mongols didn't waste an opportunity, reportedly catapulting decomposing infected corpses into Caffa. With that we have the beginning of the Black Death, a pandemic that historians believe caused a loss of regard for life, general social upheaval and a hell of a lot of wars.

So now we also know that in addition to the origin of biological warfare, the plague infected corpses catapulted at their enemies by the Mongols were history’s first weapons of mass destruction.