Richard J. Gatling patents the Gatling Gun…

Richard J. Gatling patents the Gatling Gun on November 4, 1862, and founds the Gatling Gun Company in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Gatling had invented the screw propeller for steamboats by the age of twenty-one, only to discover it had recently and independently been patented by John Ericsson.

The North Carolina native has worked as a fisherman, court clerk, teacher, and storekeeper.

While running his own store, he invented a "wheat drill", a planting device, and manufactured these for sale.

By 1845 he was earning enough from this device to devote himself to selling and marketing it full-time.

In 1861, he designed the Gatling gun, a gunpowder field weapon that uses multiple rotating barrels turned by a hand crank.

Unlike earlier weapons, such as the mitrailleuse, which had limited capacity and long reloading times, the Gatling gun is reliable, easy to load, and has a high firing rate: 350 rounds a minute.