1874 Otmar Zeidler (1859-1911) publishes a method for chemical synthesis of dichloro diphenyl trichloroethane (DDT)

1939 Paul Hermann Mueller (1899-1965) discovers the insecticidal properties of DDT

1939-45 DDT was widely used during World War II to protect soldiers and civilians from malaria, typhus and other diseases spread by insects 

Soldier being dusted with DDT powder to kill lice that carried typhus, photo from J G Edwards, Mosquitoes, DDT and Human Health,21st Century Science & Technology, Fall 2002, 16-32  

 

1947 DDT in general use as insecticide in Sweden

1948 Mueller awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine

1962 Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring signals a strong warning for the environmental impact of pesticides such as DDT 

1967 The white-tailed eagle, a bird of prey, threatened by extinction in Sweden due to DDT poisoning

Biomagnification - concentration through the food chain, from Persistent Organic Pollutants - A Swedish View of an International Problem, Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, 1998

 

1970 Use of DDT banned in Swedish agriculture

1975 Use of DDT banned in Swedish forestry

2001 The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants initiates a global phase-out of DDT (and eleven other POPs). 

2009 DDT continues to be used against mosquitos in several countries to control malaria. 

2009 The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences publishes an article by Eric D Carter: "God Bless General Peron": DDT and the Endgame of Malaria Eradication in Argentina in the 1940s (abstract)

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