“What's Picasso's favorite organ? The Artery.”
Richard Jordan GatlingDied 26 Feb 1903 at age 84 (born 12 Sep 1818). U.S. inventor, whose Gatling gun (1861) was first successful machine gun, a crank-operated, rapid-fire multibarrel design combining reliability, high firing rate and ease of loading into a single device. His father was also an inventor, and while young, Richard helped him create machines for sowing cotton seeds and thinning cotton plants. In 1839, he designed a screw propeller for steamboats, but found a similar one had been previously patented. From 1844, he continued to invent improved agricultural machines, including one to plant grains, like rice and wheat (adapted from the cotton-sowing machine); a hemp-breaking machine (1850); and a steam plow (1857). The outbreak of the American Civil War spurred him to design firearms (1861).« |
