Since this topic appeals to the science nerds, here's a current link to a series I thought had gone offline: Derek Lowe's Things I Won't Work With.

Cyanogen azide is trouble right from its empirical formula: CN4, not one hydrogen atom to its name. A molecular weight of 68 means that you're dealing with a small, lively compound, but when the stuff is 82 per cent nitrogen, you can be sure that it's yearning to be smaller and livelier still. That's a common theme in explosives, this longing to return to the gaseous state, and nitrogen-nitrogen bonds are especially known for that spiritual tendency.

There were scattered reports of the compound in the older German and French literature, but since these referred to the isolation of crystalline compounds which did not necessarily blow the lab windows out, they were clearly mistaken. F. D. Marsh at DuPont made the real thing in the 1960s (first report here, follow-up after eight no-doubt-exciting years here). It's a clear oil, not that many people have seen it that state, or at least not for long. Marsh's papers are, most appropriately, well marbled with warnings about how to handle the stuff. It's described as "a colorless oil which detonates with great violence when subjected to mild mechanical, thermal, or electrical shock", and apologies are made for the fact that most of its properties have been determined in dilute solution. For example, its boiling point, the 1972 paper notes dryly, has not been determined. (The person who determined it would have to communicate the data from the afterworld, for one thing).