October 16

October 16, 1860 was a very good day for an unassuming fellow by the name of Ben Henry. He had come up with what he thought was a pretty good idea: a cartridge rifle that you could load once and then shoot for a while. Now, that might sound like a bit of a no-brainer these days, but in 1860 it was a pretty radical notion; everybody thought he was nuts. That didn't stop Ben, though. He kept pushing at it and, on this day in 1860, he was granted US patent #30,446 for a the first ever reliable lever-action repeating rifle - tubular magazine-fed and breech-loading. While you'd think this would make him a popular guy and that everybody would like his clever little brain-child, not everyone was pleased. Especially not the Confederates. They had their own name for his little invention: "that damn Yankee rifle they load on Sunday and shoot all week!"

[more] What else happened today

1860 — Benjamin Tyler Henry receives patent #30,446, for what was to become known as "that damn Yankee rifle they load on Sunday and shoot all week". 1900 — John Browning was granted U.S. Patent 659,786 for the Remington model 8; he then sold the patent to Remington. 1970 — In Canada, the Trudeau government invoked the War Measures Act and suspended civil liberties. Security forces arrested 465 persons, mainly in Quebec, who were held without trial. 1991 — George Hennard drove his truck into Luby's restaurant in Killeen, Texas and opened fire on the patrons. 20 would be wounded and 23 killed, including the elderly parents of Suzanna Hupp. The incident would galvanize Hupp into becoming the state's staunchest advocate of concealed carry laws.

Today in pictures

• 

  2006: training exercise at Camp Fallujah's Eagle Range