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There were several inventors who started and improved on the design of the machine-gun, principally Americans - Sam Colt, Richard Gatling (of the Gatling gun) and the inventor of the first truly automatic machine-gun, Hiram Maxim. Hiram Maxim was born in Sangerville, Maine, in 1840 and followed a career in coach building. Among his other inventions were a hair-curling iron, a gas generator and a locomotive headlight, and in the 1890s he was experimenting with ideas for aeroplanes. Maxim came to live and work in London and developed his machine-gun in 1884. While he was at Paris for a exhibition he met a man who told him: "If you wanted to make a lot of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each other's throats with greater facility." This man