Invention Timeline - Benjamin Berkeley Hotchkiss, American Inventor; Reputed to be The First Artillery Engineer in the World
b. October 1, 1826 and d. February 14, 1885
American inventor. In 1856 he designed a rifle field-gun; in 1860 he submitted to the United States Government an improved system of rifling-belt and percussion fuse for projectiles; he invented an improved metallic cartridge case as a substitute for the paper-case then used in the French army; he made a revolving cannon which was adopted in Germany, Holland, Denmark, Russia, Italy, Austria, Chile, China, Norway and the United States; in 1875 he invented a magazine rifle and in 1882 a quick-firing gun which has since been adopted in France, England and the United States. At the time of his death he had the reputation of being the first artillery engineer in the world.
Grave men they were, and battlings of fierce thought
Had trampled out all softness from their brows,
And ploughed rough furrows there before their time,
For other crop than such as homebred Peace
Sows broadcast in the willing soil of youth.
Care, not of self, but for the commonweal
Had robbed their eyes of youth, and left instead
A look of patient power and iron will,
And something fiercer, too, that gave broad hint
Of the plain weapons station’d at their sides.
—A Glance Behind the Curtain: Lowell
1820-30—Percussion caps came into use.
1839—Christian F. Schonbein discovered ozone at Basel and in 1845 guncotton and collodion.
