A bit of history I’d never heard of was Chinas “Four Pests” extermination program of 1958. It seems Chairman Mao got it into his head that what China needed to do was exterminate mosquitoes, flies, rats… and sparrows. Sparrows eat seeds, and lots of sparrows eat lots of seeds, which means less food for the teeming millions of slaves and serfs in Communist China. Can’t have that! So China went to war against the Eurasian Tree Sparrow. And were remarkably successful at it, virtually making the species extinct in China.

And leading, in part, to the deaths of 30,000,000 (that’s thirty MILLION) Chinese humans.

China’s Worst Self-Inflicted Environmental Disaster: The Campaign to Wipe Out the Common Sparrow

The level of FAIL was spectacular, and well worth the read.