• 1840 – Hiram Maxim, American engineer, invented the Maxim gun (d. 1916)

His son Hiram Percy Maxim followed in his father's and uncle's footsteps and became a mechanical engineer and weapons designer as well, but he is perhaps best known for his early amateur radio experiments and for founding the American Radio Relay League. His invention of the "Maxim Silencer" for noise suppression came too late to save his father's hearing. Hiram Percy later wrote a biography of his father titled A Genius in the Family, containing about 60 anecdotes of Hiram Percy's experiences with his father throughout his early life (until about age 12). Most of these short stories are entertaining; they give a reader an insider's (and a child's) view of the man's personal and family life. So Goes My Love, a film loosely based on these memoirs and starring Don Ameche and Myrna Loy, was released in 1946.