April 2, 2021 • 11 mins
On this day in 1979, an accidental anthrax leak in a microbiology facility in Sverdlovsk in the Soviet Union caused dozens of people to fall ill. The Soviet Union would deny a leak happened until years later. / On this day in 1929, Irish mercenary Patrick Murphy unintentionally dropped two bombs over the border town of Naco, Arizona.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, history enthusiasts, you get not one, but two events
in history today on with the show Welcome to this
Day in History Class, where we bring you a new
tidbid from history every day. The day was April second,
(00:22):
nineteen seventy nine. In the Soviet city of Spurt Looks
or modern day Yukaterinburg, people began getting sick with fevers, coughing,
and vomiting. A deadly plume of anthrax spores have been
released from a military microbiology facility, causing at least sixty
four people to die in ninety people to be hospitalized.
(00:44):
At least that's what was revealed to have happened after
the incident. For years, the Soviet Union claimed that meat
tainted with anthrax was responsible for the outbreak and denied
that an accident had happened. The anthrax league, which caused
an epidemic that lasted into May, has been called the
biological chernobyl Anthrax is an infectious disease caused by the
(01:08):
bacterium Bacillus anthrax is. The bacterium produces spores that can
lie dormant in soil for decades. People can be infected
in a few ways. Cutaneous antax occurs when a person
touches an affected animal or animal product. People can get
a gastrial intestinal anthrax infection from eating an infected animal,
(01:30):
but the deadliest type of antax infection is pulmonary or inhalation,
which has a fatality rate in people who are not
treated with antibiotics. When a person breathes in a high
concentration of anthrax spores, the bacteria multiply and produced toxins.
Then the infected person starts to experience symptoms like a
(01:51):
shortness of breath, cough body eggs, fever, bloody, vomiting, and fainting.
Because antax spores are easily found and produced in our
microscopic they are an ideal weapon for bioterrorists. The spurret
Loft leak wasn't an act of bioterrorism. It was accidental,
but it harmed and killed many people. Nonetheless, in nineteen
(02:14):
seventy two, most countries signed the Biological Weapons Convention, which
banned the development, production, and use of biological weapons. The
Soviet Union was one of the signatories, but the convention
didn't fan bio weapons defense research, and it did not
institute a compliance and monitoring body. In October nineteen seventy nine,
(02:36):
a newspaper in West Germany random report that said there
had been a germ accident that cost thousands of deaths
in the Soviet Union, and in early nineteen eighty that
same paper reported that in April nineteen seventy nine, there
had been an explosion at a secret military installation near
spurt Loofs that released anthrax spores into the air. There
(02:57):
was word that Soviet military had made efforts to decon
hminate the area. Once the scores were released, the news
spread around the world. In U s intelligence soon discovered
that there were signs of an accident at the bioweapons
facility Compound nineteen and spurt looksk Plus. The Soviet Defense
Minister Ustinov had visited the city at that time. The
(03:20):
US accused the Soviet Union of violating the ban on
the use of biological weapons, and in return, the Soviet
Union accused the US of intensifying tensions between the two
states and waging psychological warfare on the Soviet Union. The
Soviets maintained that tainted meat was the reason an anthrax
outbreak had happened, and many Western scientists believed them doubting
(03:43):
the accusation that there had been an accidental antrox release,
including biologist Matthew Messelsson, who the CIA assigned to examine
the evidence from intelligence sources. The Soviet Union held strong
to their story that meat had been tainted, and the
Reagan administration continued to accuse the Soviet Union of violating
(04:04):
the Bioweapons Convention. But finally, in nine after the Soviet
Union had dissolved, Russian President Boris Yelson admitted to US
President George H. W. Bush that the outbreak was in
fact a bioweapons accident, and it did originate at the
military facility. Yeltsen said, he told Bush the following, we
(04:25):
are still deceiving you, Mr Bush. We promised to eliminate
bacteriological weapons, but some of our experts did everything possible
to prevent me from learning the truth. It was not easy,
but I outfoxed them. I caught them red handed. I
found two test sites. They are inoculating tracts of land
with anthrax, allowing wild animals to go there and observing them.
(04:49):
Yeltsen promised to give the families of the people who
had died in the outbreak pensions, and said that Russia
would follow the Bioweapons Convention, but more information about the
Soviet it's biological warfare operations came out a year after
signing the nineteen seventy two convention. The Soviet Union had
created Biopreparat, a civilian program that employed fifty thousand people
(05:11):
across fifty two facilities to manufacture biowarfare agents. The program's
deputy director, whose name is now Ken Alabek, defected to
the US in ninet and told what he had heard
about the incident in the book Biohazard. According to Alabek,
Compound nineteen produced tons of powdered antox every year to
(05:33):
release from ballistic missiles. According to this account, a technician
had removed a clogged filter and it wasn't replaced until
too late. A breeze carried anto scores to a nearby
ceramics factory, infecting the workers, who were mostly men, and
killing many of them within a week. To make the
tainted meat lie look more credible, the Soviets shot stray dogs,
(05:57):
arrested black market food vendors, and bathed victims bodies and
chemical disinfectants. The KGB disposed of hospital records and pathological reports,
but all the activity just spread the spores. More people
within two and a half miles of the factory were
infected and died, and animals even farther than that were affected.
(06:20):
Yelsen let international inspectors into Spurt Lofts to investigate the incident,
as the Soviets had refused to let investigators in when
the news first broke. Autopsy slides of the infected victims
showed evidence not of intestinal anthrax, but of inhalation anthrax,
which can take weeks to show symptoms, and the families
(06:41):
affected all lived down whend of the bioweapons facility, which
pointed to an air assault of inhalation anthrax being the culprit.
In New research suggested that the anthrax strain at Spurt
Lofts was close to natural strains, so the facility was
probably not genetically engineering anthrax that was antibiotic or vaccine resistant.
(07:06):
I'm Eaves, Jeff Coote, and hopefully you know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. Get more
notes from history on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at T
D i h C podcast. Tune in tomorrow for another
day in History. Hey everyone, I'm Eves and welcome to
(07:37):
This Day in History Class a podcast that really takes
the heart the phrase you learn something new every day.
The day was April twod Irish mercenary Patrick Murphy accidentally
(07:58):
dropped two bombs over the board town of Naco, Arizona.
The bombing of Naco marked the first time the US
was hit with aerial bombs by foreign agent. Starting in
early March of nine, General Jesus Maria Agieri and General
Gonzalo Escobar led a rebellion against the government in northern Mexico.
(08:20):
The Escobar Rebellion, as the conflict is known, aimed to
overthrow Mexican President Portez Hill. Escobar accused Hell's administration of
corruption and being an instrument of the former president Plutarko
Elias Cays. The rebellion took place largely in the North
Mexican states, including Sonora. The governor of Sonora, Falsto to Pete,
(08:43):
supported the rebellion against the federal government. To Pete sent
his armies to invade Naco, a Sonora border town that
at the time was held by federal troops who supported
President Hell. Sonora was important because it was an international
port of entry and a key railroad option. Many residents
of Naco Sonora fled to American Naco anticipating the rebel attack.
(09:07):
Others fortified their homes. The siege of Naco began in
late March of both sides began carrying out air attacks.
Rebels bombed mostly on the outskirts of Naco Sonora, and
they also bombed the Southern Pacific Railroad yards, but they
were also hitting the US side of Naco. One of
(09:28):
the American mercenaries that the rebels hired was Patrick Murphy.
Before he turned up in Arizona, Murphy had been charged
with manslaughter in Alabama after his mechanic died in a
plane crash. Murphy had a small biplane that he used
to carry out bombings for the anti government cause. He
stopped his plane with bombs made of dynamite and scrap
(09:49):
metal stuffed into cylinders. Some of the rebels bombs did
hit trenches in Mexico, but others fell in Naco, Arizona.
On April second, two of Murphy's bombs fell on the
U s side. A photographer and a reporter were wounded,
glass shattered, and buildings. Murphy's bombing runs also damaged a
(10:09):
post office and a car though nobody died from them.
On the U S side, an article and the Independent
Record out of Helena, Montana referenced the April second bombing,
saying the following in retaliation for the bombing of Naco,
Sonora this morning by rebels to Douglas bombing planes from
General Abe Lardo Rodriguez's air squadron flew over the rebel
(10:34):
camp southeast of Naco at noon today, dropping explosives. The
aviators reported by telephone to Rodriguez's headquarters at Mexicali, LC
across the line. From here, reporters and spectators gathered at
the border to observe the rebellion, but by early April,
Murphy's plane was shot down by a Mexican soldier. He
(10:56):
escaped two rebel lines, then headed to the US, where
he was arrested by American authorities for violations of US
neutrality laws, along with other American mercenaries. He was taken
to jail in Nogalis, Arizona, but none of the Americans
were ever prosecuted. The rebels were defeated in the siege
of Naco, and the Escobar rebellion was suppressed by late April.
(11:21):
What happened to Murphy after he left jail is unknown.
I'm Eve Chef Code and hopefully you know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. If you
want to hit us up on social media, you can
do so at t D I h C. Podcast. You
can also send us an email at this Day at
iHeartMedia dot com. I hope you enjoyed the show and
(11:43):
we'll be back tomorrow with another episode. For more podcasts
from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, history enthusiasts, you get not one, but two events
in history today on with the show Welcome to this
Day in History Class, where we bring you a new
tidbid from history every day. The day was April second,
(00:22):
nineteen seventy nine. In the Soviet city of Spurt Looks
or modern day Yukaterinburg, people began getting sick with fevers, coughing,
and vomiting. A deadly plume of anthrax spores have been
released from a military microbiology facility, causing at least sixty
four people to die in ninety people to be hospitalized.
(00:44):
At least that's what was revealed to have happened after
the incident. For years, the Soviet Union claimed that meat
tainted with anthrax was responsible for the outbreak and denied
that an accident had happened. The anthrax league, which caused
an epidemic that lasted into May, has been called the
biological chernobyl Anthrax is an infectious disease caused by the
(01:08):
bacterium Bacillus anthrax is. The bacterium produces spores that can
lie dormant in soil for decades. People can be infected
in a few ways. Cutaneous antax occurs when a person
touches an affected animal or animal product. People can get
a gastrial intestinal anthrax infection from eating an infected animal,
(01:30):
but the deadliest type of antax infection is pulmonary or inhalation,
which has a fatality rate in people who are not
treated with antibiotics. When a person breathes in a high
concentration of anthrax spores, the bacteria multiply and produced toxins.
Then the infected person starts to experience symptoms like a
(01:51):
shortness of breath, cough body eggs, fever, bloody, vomiting, and fainting.
Because antax spores are easily found and produced in our
microscopic they are an ideal weapon for bioterrorists. The spurret
Loft leak wasn't an act of bioterrorism. It was accidental,
but it harmed and killed many people. Nonetheless, in nineteen
(02:14):
seventy two, most countries signed the Biological Weapons Convention, which
banned the development, production, and use of biological weapons. The
Soviet Union was one of the signatories, but the convention
didn't fan bio weapons defense research, and it did not
institute a compliance and monitoring body. In October nineteen seventy nine,
(02:36):
a newspaper in West Germany random report that said there
had been a germ accident that cost thousands of deaths
in the Soviet Union, and in early nineteen eighty that
same paper reported that in April nineteen seventy nine, there
had been an explosion at a secret military installation near
spurt Loofs that released anthrax spores into the air. There
(02:57):
was word that Soviet military had made efforts to decon
hminate the area. Once the scores were released, the news
spread around the world. In U s intelligence soon discovered
that there were signs of an accident at the bioweapons
facility Compound nineteen and spurt looksk Plus. The Soviet Defense
Minister Ustinov had visited the city at that time. The
(03:20):
US accused the Soviet Union of violating the ban on
the use of biological weapons, and in return, the Soviet
Union accused the US of intensifying tensions between the two
states and waging psychological warfare on the Soviet Union. The
Soviets maintained that tainted meat was the reason an anthrax
outbreak had happened, and many Western scientists believed them doubting
(03:43):
the accusation that there had been an accidental antrox release,
including biologist Matthew Messelsson, who the CIA assigned to examine
the evidence from intelligence sources. The Soviet Union held strong
to their story that meat had been tainted, and the
Reagan administration continued to accuse the Soviet Union of violating
(04:04):
the Bioweapons Convention. But finally, in nine after the Soviet
Union had dissolved, Russian President Boris Yelson admitted to US
President George H. W. Bush that the outbreak was in
fact a bioweapons accident, and it did originate at the
military facility. Yeltsen said, he told Bush the following, we
(04:25):
are still deceiving you, Mr Bush. We promised to eliminate
bacteriological weapons, but some of our experts did everything possible
to prevent me from learning the truth. It was not easy,
but I outfoxed them. I caught them red handed. I
found two test sites. They are inoculating tracts of land
with anthrax, allowing wild animals to go there and observing them.
(04:49):
Yeltsen promised to give the families of the people who
had died in the outbreak pensions, and said that Russia
would follow the Bioweapons Convention, but more information about the
Soviet it's biological warfare operations came out a year after
signing the nineteen seventy two convention. The Soviet Union had
created Biopreparat, a civilian program that employed fifty thousand people
(05:11):
across fifty two facilities to manufacture biowarfare agents. The program's
deputy director, whose name is now Ken Alabek, defected to
the US in ninet and told what he had heard
about the incident in the book Biohazard. According to Alabek,
Compound nineteen produced tons of powdered antox every year to
(05:33):
release from ballistic missiles. According to this account, a technician
had removed a clogged filter and it wasn't replaced until
too late. A breeze carried anto scores to a nearby
ceramics factory, infecting the workers, who were mostly men, and
killing many of them within a week. To make the
tainted meat lie look more credible, the Soviets shot stray dogs,
(05:57):
arrested black market food vendors, and bathed victims bodies and
chemical disinfectants. The KGB disposed of hospital records and pathological reports,
but all the activity just spread the spores. More people
within two and a half miles of the factory were
infected and died, and animals even farther than that were affected.
(06:20):
Yelsen let international inspectors into Spurt Lofts to investigate the incident,
as the Soviets had refused to let investigators in when
the news first broke. Autopsy slides of the infected victims
showed evidence not of intestinal anthrax, but of inhalation anthrax,
which can take weeks to show symptoms, and the families
(06:41):
affected all lived down whend of the bioweapons facility, which
pointed to an air assault of inhalation anthrax being the culprit.
In New research suggested that the anthrax strain at Spurt
Lofts was close to natural strains, so the facility was
probably not genetically engineering anthrax that was antibiotic or vaccine resistant.
(07:06):
I'm Eaves, Jeff Coote, and hopefully you know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. Get more
notes from history on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at T
D i h C podcast. Tune in tomorrow for another
day in History. Hey everyone, I'm Eves and welcome to
(07:37):
This Day in History Class a podcast that really takes
the heart the phrase you learn something new every day.
The day was April twod Irish mercenary Patrick Murphy accidentally
(07:58):
dropped two bombs over the board town of Naco, Arizona.
The bombing of Naco marked the first time the US
was hit with aerial bombs by foreign agent. Starting in
early March of nine, General Jesus Maria Agieri and General
Gonzalo Escobar led a rebellion against the government in northern Mexico.
(08:20):
The Escobar Rebellion, as the conflict is known, aimed to
overthrow Mexican President Portez Hill. Escobar accused Hell's administration of
corruption and being an instrument of the former president Plutarko
Elias Cays. The rebellion took place largely in the North
Mexican states, including Sonora. The governor of Sonora, Falsto to Pete,
(08:43):
supported the rebellion against the federal government. To Pete sent
his armies to invade Naco, a Sonora border town that
at the time was held by federal troops who supported
President Hell. Sonora was important because it was an international
port of entry and a key railroad option. Many residents
of Naco Sonora fled to American Naco anticipating the rebel attack.
(09:07):
Others fortified their homes. The siege of Naco began in
late March of both sides began carrying out air attacks.
Rebels bombed mostly on the outskirts of Naco Sonora, and
they also bombed the Southern Pacific Railroad yards, but they
were also hitting the US side of Naco. One of
(09:28):
the American mercenaries that the rebels hired was Patrick Murphy.
Before he turned up in Arizona, Murphy had been charged
with manslaughter in Alabama after his mechanic died in a
plane crash. Murphy had a small biplane that he used
to carry out bombings for the anti government cause. He
stopped his plane with bombs made of dynamite and scrap
(09:49):
metal stuffed into cylinders. Some of the rebels bombs did
hit trenches in Mexico, but others fell in Naco, Arizona.
On April second, two of Murphy's bombs fell on the
U s side. A photographer and a reporter were wounded,
glass shattered, and buildings. Murphy's bombing runs also damaged a
(10:09):
post office and a car though nobody died from them.
On the U S side, an article and the Independent
Record out of Helena, Montana referenced the April second bombing,
saying the following in retaliation for the bombing of Naco,
Sonora this morning by rebels to Douglas bombing planes from
General Abe Lardo Rodriguez's air squadron flew over the rebel
(10:34):
camp southeast of Naco at noon today, dropping explosives. The
aviators reported by telephone to Rodriguez's headquarters at Mexicali, LC
across the line. From here, reporters and spectators gathered at
the border to observe the rebellion, but by early April,
Murphy's plane was shot down by a Mexican soldier. He
(10:56):
escaped two rebel lines, then headed to the US, where
he was arrested by American authorities for violations of US
neutrality laws, along with other American mercenaries. He was taken
to jail in Nogalis, Arizona, but none of the Americans
were ever prosecuted. The rebels were defeated in the siege
of Naco, and the Escobar rebellion was suppressed by late April.
(11:21):
What happened to Murphy after he left jail is unknown.
I'm Eve Chef Code and hopefully you know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. If you
want to hit us up on social media, you can
do so at t D I h C. Podcast. You
can also send us an email at this Day at
iHeartMedia dot com. I hope you enjoyed the show and
(11:43):
we'll be back tomorrow with another episode. For more podcasts
from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
This Day in History Class News
Host
Gabe Luzier
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