Hiram Stevens Maxim
| Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim | |
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| Birthday | |
| Birthplace | Sangerville, Maine, USA |
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Maxim, Hiram Stevens
Born Feb. 5, 1840, in Sangerville, Me.; died Nov. 24, 1916, in Streatham, Great Britain. American designer and entrepreneur.
Maxim completed his elementary education and then worked as a master toolmaker at plants in Pittsburgh, Boston, and New York. In 1883 he developed his first automatic weapons: an automatic rifle, an automatic cannon, and a medium machine gun. In 1888, Maxim and T. Nordenfeldt, an English manufacturer, established a rapid-fire cannon plant in Germany. Maxim’s medium machine gun worked on the recoil principle; after refinements it was adopted by numerous armies and was in use up to World War II.