In 1866, a young American mechanic patented his first invention – a hair curling tool. After that, the young man became engrossed in designing weapons. He was not very successful with automatic rifles, while a heavy machinegun that he invented brought luck, money and fame to the engineer. Two countries – Sweden and England -started producing the machinegun immediately. In 1901, Queen Victoria granted knighthood to Hiram Maxim. His machinegun models gained ground in the world. Suffice is to say that though there were 8 such machineguns in the Russian army in 1904, they played a decisive role during the battle with Japanese and contributed to the victory over the enemy that outstripped Russian troops by 5 times in strength. Russia did not produce its own machineguns. General Dragomirov put forward a killer of an argument against them: “If we had to kill a person several times, it would be an excellent weapon. However, it is enough to kill a person once, which constitutes a problem for those who like shooting so many times.” The talented officer was mistaken – machineguns carved out their place in history. As for Russia, machineguns won a sort of romantic air. Everybody remembers horse-drawn carts with a Maxim mounted on them, which were widely used during the Civil War. Soviet gun-makers modified Maxim making it lighter, and the Red Army used these weapons until the World War Two.