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:
“Throw away the lights, the definitions,
And say of what you see in the dark
That it is this or that it is that,
But do not use the rotted names.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)