Hiram Stevens Maxim
Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (February 5, 1840 – November 24, 1916) was an American-born inventor who emigrated to the United Kingdom at the age of forty-one, although he remained an American citizen until he became a naturalized British subject in 1900. He was the inventor of the Maxim Gun – the first portable, fully automatic machine gun – and an elaborate mousetrap. He laid a claim to inventing the lightbulb, and even experimented with powered flight, but his large aircraft designs were never successful. However, his "Captive Flying Machine" amusement ride, designed as a means by which to fund his research while generating public interest in flight, was highly successful.
Read more about Hiram Stevens Maxim: Birth, Family, Emigration and Knighthood, Profession, The Maxim Machine Gun, Inventions, Flying Machines, Philosophy and Religion, Death, Books, Patents
Famous quotes containing the words stevens and/or maxim:
“There was neither voice nor crested image,
No chorister, nor priest. There was
Only the great height of the rock
And the two of them standing still to rest.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)