INVENTOR

Hiram Maxim

1840 - 1916

Photo of Hiram Maxim

Icon of person Hiram Maxim

Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (5 February 1840 – 24 November 1916) was an American-born British inventor best known as the creator of the first automatic machine gun, the Maxim gun. Maxim held patents on numerous mechanical devices such as hair-curling irons, a mousetrap, and steam pumps. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Hiram Maxim has received more than 951,041 page views. His biography is available in 36 different languages on Wikipedia. Hiram Maxim is the 118th most popular inventor (up from 151st in 2019), the 1,428th most popular biography from United States (up from 2,064th in 2019) and the 29th most popular American Inventor.

Hiram Maxim is most famous for inventing the machine gun.

Memorability Metrics

  • 950k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 60.30

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 36

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 5.04

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.65

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among INVENTORS

Among inventors, Hiram Maxim ranks 118 out of 426. Before him are Léon Theremin, Alfred Krupp, Zacharias Janssen, Charles-Émile Reynaud, Josiah Warren, and André Michelin. After him are Theobald Boehm, Percy Spencer, Josef Ressel, Johann Jacob Schweppe, Henri Giffard, and Taiichi Ohno.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1840, Hiram Maxim ranks 23. Before him are Per Teodor Cleve, Thomas Hardy, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Johann II, Prince of Liechtenstein, Alfred Thayer Mahan, and Edward Whymper. After him are Giovanni Verga, Hans Makart, Kuroda Kiyotaka, Sisowath of Cambodia, Princess Margaretha of Saxony, and August Leskien. Among people deceased in 1916, Hiram Maxim ranks 39. Before him are Rubén Darío, Percival Lowell, Gérard Encausse, Jean Webster, Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, and Victoriano Huerta. After him are Hugo Münsterberg, Pierre Duhem, Julius Fučík, Vasily Surikov, Cleveland Abbe, and Théodule-Armand Ribot.

Others Born in 1840

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Others Deceased in 1916

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Hiram Maxim ranks 1,428 out of 20,380. Before him are Aaron Burr (1756), Thomas Schelling (1921), Hal Holbrook (1925), George Smoot (1945), Joshua Lederberg (1925), and Henry Rollins (1961). After him are Neil Diamond (1941), William Daniel Phillips (1948), Beck (1970), Daniel Dennett (1942), Walter Bradford Cannon (1871), and Ron Howard (1954).

Others born in United States

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Among INVENTORS In United States

Among inventors born in United States, Hiram Maxim ranks 29. Before him are Elisha Otis (1811), Leo Fender (1909), Robert Noyce (1927), Jacque Fresco (1916), Lee de Forest (1873), and Josiah Warren (1798). After him are Percy Spencer (1894), Mary Anderson (1862), Elisha Gray (1835), Richard Jordan Gatling (1818), Robert Moog (1934), and Sequoyah (1770).

American born Inventors

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