Russian tin stockpile failure (WWII)
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Illustration of tin pest (white-tin to gray-tin transformation at -18°C). Used to explain why antimony and lead inhibitors are specified in solder, though Tom notes the historical rationale turned out not to be the operative reason.
It happened to the Russians in World War II. They had a big stockpile of tin outdoors that they were storing, and the winter came along, everything got covered with snow, and in the spring when the snow melted, they found they had a pile of not tin ingots but tin powder, because it got to minus 18° centigrade, or thereabouts, which is the maximum transformation temperature. This question was on my doctoral exam, by the way — not tin pest, but the maximum transformation temperature of gray tin to white tin, and going through the kinetics. If I'm a Russian general, I'm just irritated I've got a bunch of tin oxide now rather than tin ingots. But I could calculate it at that time in my life — at least I guess I could, I don't remember if I could or not. I got a pass, who cares.