Hiram Stevens Maxim
"I am well aware of the disagreeable effect produced on the majority of humanity,
by whatever relates, even at the slightest degree to calculations or
mathematical reasoning's."
Hiram Maxim when he was in his late 60's
Hiram Stevens Maxim was born on February 5, 1840 in Sangerville, Maine. He was a famous American inventor who had 122 patents in the U.S. and 149 in Britain. His most famous was the maxim gun, which he created in 1883. This was the world's first fully automatic machine gun. Maxim based his design off the rapid shooting gatling gun, but instead of cranking it Maxim wanted to use the recoil to automatically load the next bullet, thus making this weapon shoot faster, reload quicker, and only have one barrel. Because the fire rate of the gun was so fast, this caused the barrel to overheat rapidly. The gatling gun didn't have this problem because the multiple barrels had time to cool before the next shot as they rotated. To compensate for the one barrel, Maxim created a cylinder around the barrel that's filled with water to cool the barrel. This gun made an extraordinary impact on the human race. It was used by the British and American armies in World War 1 allowing them to decimate many soldiers on the battle field in a very short time, shooting at 500 rounds per a minute. The Maxim gun is featured in the an episode of the HBO TV series The Pacific where a soldier shoots hundreds of Japanese soldiers advancing towards their line. It had a large impact in World War 1, and led to the creating of more advanced machine guns. In addition to the Maxim gun, Hiram Maxim also invented a light bulb, an improved mouse trap, and a flying plane powered by steam engines that didn't work so well before his death on November 24, 1916. With the invention of the Maxim gun, Hiram Maxim contributed to the gun control debate we have today. Assault weapons are able to injure many people very quickly, making it one of the growing concerns among Americans today. It all started from the first machine gun created, the Maxim gun, by Hiram Stevens Maxim.