February 5

Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim was born on this day in 1840, in Sangerville, Maine.

Young Hiram wasn't the only bright bulb on the Maxim family tree — his brother Hudson was also a military inventor, specializing in explosives (you can thank him for the smokeless powder we all have so much fun with) and his son, Hiram Percy, became well known for his early amateur radio experiments, for founding the American Radio Relay League and for developing the Maxim Silencer (too late, unfortunately, to save his dad's hearing).

It was Hiram the elder, though, who would be forever remembered for inventing the Maxim Gun in 1884 — the world's first portable, fully automatic machine gun, which paved the way for all the rest that followed.

If that doesn't impress you enough, he also invented the mousetrap. Really, we aren't making that up.
See for yourself...