THIS DAY IN HISTORY:
Sverdlovsk Anthrax Leak (1979)
Known as the "biological Chernobyl," the accidental release of anthrax at a Russian military facility in Sverdlovsk—now Yekaterinburg—roughly 900 mi (1,450 km) east of Moscow, sickened and killed around 100 people. The exact number of victims remains unknown because, as part of the Soviet government's cover-up of the incident, which it blamed on tainted meat, all of the victims' medical records were destroyed.
