A closer look
British military planners during World War II developed a secret biological warfare scheme called Operation Vegetarian that involved dropping millions of anthrax-infected linseed cakes over Germany to wipe out their cattle. The goal was to destroy the German beef and dairy supply while simultaneously causing a massive human anthrax outbreak, but the war ended before the poisoned snacks could be deployed. They did test it on a Scottish island, which remained heavily quarantined and completely uninhabitable for nearly fifty years until the government finally cleaned up the mess in the 1990s. Nothing quite screams tactical brilliance like rendering a portion of your own country a toxic wasteland for half a century just to see if you could theoretically assassinate a foreign cow!
