Richard Jordan Gatling of Murfreesboro, N.C, had many inventions, including a rice-sowing machine, a screw propeller for steamboats and improvements to the toilet. But he is best known for the Gatling gun, the first successful machine gun.
The Gatling gun was invented at the start of the Civil War in 1861. As the story goes, according to James Moore, president of the Murfreesboro Historical Association, Gatling wanted to create a weapon so efficient that it would discourage people from fighting wars ever again.
Though not adopted by either the North or the South, the hand-cranked, ten barrelled gun was widely used in the expansion of European empires, namely the British empire in India.
