Uses of Cyanide
Manufacturing: Cyanide can be used in manufacturing in order to make paper, textiles, and plastics. It is also used in the development of photographs .
Metallurgy: Cyanide is used in electroplating, or coating metal with a thin sheet of another metal, the cleaning of some metals, and to remove gold from its ore. The use of cyanide while removing gold from its ore is dangerous, due to cyanide's poisonous attributes, and is a controversial issue. In some countries, this method has been banned due to the potential dangers.
Pesticide: Cyanide gas, especially Hydrogen Cyanide, is used commonly as a way to exterminate pests and vermin from ships and buildings. It can also be used to fumigate grain storages. Cyanide salts are a poison as well, used in many rat and ant poisons.
Chemical Weapon: Cyanide has been used in many wars as a chemical weapon. In World War I it was used alongside mustard and others kinds of gases in the trenches, especially on the Western Front. In World War II, Hydrogen Cyanide, under the name of Zyklon B, was used as a genocidal agent in the Nazi death camps. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, cyanide may have been used on the inhabitants of Halabja, a Kurdish city in Nothern Iraq, along with other chemical agents.
Murder and Suicide: Over the course of history, there have been countless deaths associated with cyanide. Some famous people, including Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun in 1945, Hermann Göring in 1945, and Alan Turing in 1954, committed suicide with Cyanide. Murders using Cyanide have also occurred, including the Goebbels children in 1945, the Chicago Tylenol murders in 1982, and Urooj Khan in 2012.