History
The concept of stopping power appeared in the 19th Century when colonial troops (e.g. American in the Philippines during the Moro Rebellion, British in New Zealand during the Land Wars), engaging in close action with native tribesmen, found that their pistols were not able to stop charging warriors. This led to larger caliber weapons (such as the .45 Colt being returned to service, and the .45 ACP being developed), intended to stop opponents with a single round.
During the Seymour Expedition in China, at one of the battles at Langfang, Chinese Boxers, armed with swords and spears, charged the British and Americans, who were armed with guns. At point blank range, one British soldier had to empty four bullets into a Boxer before he stopped, and the American Captain Bowman McCalla reported that single rifle shots were not enough, multiple rifle shots were needed to halt a Boxer. Only machine guns were effective in stopping the Boxers.
British troops used expanding bullets against native tribesmen in the Northwest Frontier of India, and in the Sudan (see The River War by Winston Churchill). Hence Britain voted against a prohibition on their use at the Hague Convention of 1899, although the prohibition only applied to international warfare.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)