Who invented maxim machine gun

But when war broke out, machine guns proved to be catastrophic. It was near the dawn of the World War I that, after a bout with bronchitis, Maxim designed a new kind of inhaler. Had it been anything else but a killing machine, very little would have been said of it. This article is part of our With Great Power project, which is supported by a grant from the Joyce Foundation. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic.

Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Sign In Subscribe. In one demonstration, Maxim chopped down a tree with a machine gun. Maxim also developed his own smokeless gun powder called cordite to improve its efficiency. Remarkably, Maxim even wrote how his brother named Isaac changed his name to Hudson in an attempt to hitch on to his success. The Brooklyn native went to school in the Boston area, graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in at age Like his father, he had an eccentric mind and curiosity for innovation.

He took a gasoline engine, jury-rigged it to a tricycle, and attempted to ride it from Hartford, Connecticut, to Springfield, Massachusetts. In the s, he worked for the Columbia Automobile Co. These vehicles had loud exhaust systems, and the younger Maxim developed silencing devices to limit their sound. Soon, he realized these devices could be applied to other machines, and he used similar technology to produce the first commercially available firearms suppressor in While the family behind the machine gun and the suppressor contributed substantially to society and warfare, the elder Maxim ultimately believed his greatest invention was a lifesaving apparatus known as the medical inhaler.

The idea formed while he was suffering from a serious case of bronchitis in He prides himself on uncovering the most fascinating tales of history by sharing them through any means of engaging storytelling.

He writes for his micro-blog LateNightHistory on Instagram, where he shares the story behind the image. He is also the host of the Late Night History podcast. When not writing about history, Matt enjoys volunteering for One More Wave and rooting for Boston sports teams.

Follow Matt Fratus: Twitter Instagram. Today, we look within a great inventor and find a little boy playing at war. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them. A t the end of the last century the American inventor Hiram Maxim presented himself to the police in Petersburg, Russia.

He was there to sell his new Maxim machine gun to the Czar. Maxim was born in Maine in He was drawn to invention early in life. He worked with gas illumination, then electricity. He developed electric lighting systems even before Edison. In a friend told him, "Hang your electricity. If you want to make your fortune, invent something to help these fool Europeans kill each other more quickly! Maxim took the advice. By he'd invented the first single-barrel machine gun.

This "Maxim Gun" fired rounds a minute, and it changed warfare. The Maxim Guns and nastier guns that followed made Maxim's name.

They also gained him an English knighthood.