sarin, the fragrance of nazi was discovered accidentally
I know Tom Brokaw called the World War II generation the greatest generation but even he must admit there were a lot of sick son-of-a-bitches in that graduating class. Apparently Winston Churchill tested so much anthrax on an island just off of Scotland as he prepared to Anthrax the shit out of Europe that to this day the island is uninhabitable.
And we know that the Nazi were known for trying to get the most out of the evil they had been given.
A German chemist, Dr. Gerhard Schrader had been working on developing a pest control substance for the Nazi's agricultural department. What he came up with was "methyl-isopropoxyl-fluorophosphine oxide" or Sarin.
The second he sprayed even the smallest amount on a colony of leaf lice every single one of them died.
He was pretty geeked.
After some tweaking he had discovered that even if he used a solution where only 1 part on 200,000 had "methyl-isopropoxyl-fluorophosphine oxide" in it, he got the same result.
He was feeling pretty good about himself.
Then one day he accidentally came in physical contact with the shit and almost instantly his pupils started contracting so rapidly for all practical purposes he was blind. He started foaming at the mouth. He lost his hearing as well as most of his muscle coordination. He was rendered completely helpless by the uncontrollable vomiting, twitching, and jerking by the little bit that touched his finger.
The revenge of the leaf lice God was swift and thorough.
Soon all of his assistants came down with similar symptoms (probably trying to drag his infected ass out of the lab) and the nazi had to close down his laboratory and it was nearly a month before any of technicians could function normally again.
Dr. Gerhard Schrader wasn't finished however in his quest to solidify his place in history.
Having sworn off "taste testing the product" he then went on to create Tabun also known as dimethyl-aminoethoxyl-cyanophosphine oxide. It was ten times more deadly than punk ass Sarin which he discovered by personal experience doesn't even kill you.
Tabun on the other hand is so deadly that it is even corrosive to metal. The Nazi found that to even contain it they needed to coat all steel containment vessels with silver just to keep it from leaking out and fucking them up.
Despite the fact that they wore enough protective clothing to keep them alive in the vacuum of space there were still casualties, mostly among the workers and technicians handling the stuff as the Nazi started producing Tabun by the tons, 250,000 tons by some estimates.
I know Tom Brokaw called the World War II generation the greatest generation but even he must admit there were a lot of sick son-of-a-bitches in that graduating class. Apparently Winston Churchill tested so much anthrax on an island just off of Scotland as he prepared to Anthrax the shit out of Europe that to this day the island is uninhabitable. 
