Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

Today's subject is one of the deadliest weapons on Earth, sarin gas.

There is a very strange story about its original intended target.

The enemy back then wasn't Syrian rebels, who have been targeted with the gas by their own government.

It was, wait for it, the weevil, a verrocious beetle found in fields and orchards.

Ask a gardener about weevils, or ask Orkin, the pest control experts.

Here's what their website says about weevils.

Quote, they can be very destructive, and their damage is often very expensive.

In the mid-1930s, there was a weevil problem on German farms.

The German government, forced to buy expensive pesticides from overseas, turned to a scientific bayer,

yes, the aspirin one, to develop a cheaper alternative.

His name was Gerhard Schrader. As head of Bayer's plant protection group, Schrader got to work

mixing various molecules. He was trying to concoct a substance strong enough to kill pests,

but spare animals and humans. He tinkered for months with compounds before he had a

eureka moment. He added cyanide to the mix. The scientists quickly developed a splitting headache

and struggled to breathe. Suddenly, he could barely see. Trader spent three weeks recovering.

He had failed, but by accident, he also succeeded

in a different, much darker way. I.G. Farben, the drug conglomerate that owned Bayer,

reported Schrader's discovery to the German military. Mustard gas, first used in World War I,

took a long time to kill, hours, or even days.

Schrader's discovery only needed about 20 minutes.

The Third Reich was so impressed with his work that he was granted a bonus worth about $20,000,

...