A correction in today's New York Times reads: "Because of an editing error, an article on Tuesday about the European Union's response to the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter misstated when a chemical agent was last used on European soil. The poisoning marked the first use of a chemical agent on European soil since — not before — the Second World War."
It's always risky to declare that something is the "first." Aleksandr Litvinenko was reportedly murdered with polonium in London in 2006. Georgi Markov was reportedly murdered with ricin in London in 1978. There were credible if not completely conclusive reports that the Serbs used chemical weapons in Bosnia in the 1990s. All three of those happened since World War II, making the Times claim that the recent poisoning is the "first" since World War II worthy of a second correction.