swap_horiz Hiram Maxim Alternatives

1

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born inventor whose 1876 U.S. telephone patent helped launch practical voice commun...

Audio Communication 19TH Century Telephone

9.2 Excellent

2

Henry Bessemer

Henry Bessemer was an English engineer whose 1856 Bessemer process made large-scale, low-cost steel production possible...

19TH Century Steel Industrial British

8.9 Great

3

John Moses Browning

John Moses Browning was an American firearms designer whose work included the M1911 pistol and Browning Automatic Rifle,...

American 20TH Century Firearms Machine Gun

8.8 Great

4

Samuel Morse

Samuel Morse was an American painter and inventor who co-developed Morse code and sent a public telegraph message from W...

Communication American 19TH Century Code

8.7 Great

5

George Westinghouse

George Westinghouse was an American inventor and industrialist who promoted alternating-current power systems in the Uni...

American 19TH Century Electric Railway

8.7 Great

6

Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist and inventor who patented dynamite in 1867 and left his fortune to establish the Nobe...

Chemistry 19TH Century Swedish Dynamite

8.7 Great

7

Joseph Marie Jacquard

Joseph Marie Jacquard was a French weaver whose 1801 Jacquard loom used punched cards to automate complex textile patter...

French 19TH Century Textile Loom

8.7 Great

8

Gottlieb Daimler

Gottlieb Daimler was a German engineer who helped create a high-speed petrol engine in 1885, a key step toward modern mo...

German Engine 19TH Century Transport

8.6 Great

9

Richard Trevithick

Richard Trevithick was a Cornish engineer who built high-pressure steam engines and ran an early steam locomotive in Wal...

Engine 19TH Century British Transport

8.5 Great

10

Mikhail Kalashnikov

Mikhail Kalashnikov was a Soviet weapons designer best known for the AK-47 assault rifle, officially adopted by the Sovi...

Military Russian 20TH Century Firearms

8.5 Great

11

Rene Laennec

Rene Laennec was a French physician who invented the stethoscope in Paris in 1816, creating a wooden tube for mediate au...

French 19TH Century Medical Diagnostics

8.5 Great

12

Adolphe Sax

Adolphe Sax was a Belgian instrument maker in Paris who patented the saxophone in 1846, creating a reed instrument later...

Music 19TH Century Instrument Belgian

8.4 Great

13

Wilhelm Maybach

Wilhelm Maybach was a German engineer who worked with Gottlieb Daimler and designed early petrol engines and cars, inclu...

German Engine 19TH Century Transport

8.3 Great

14

Carl von Linde

Carl von Linde was a German engineer who developed practical refrigeration machines in the 1870s and later advanced air...

German 19TH Century Industrial Refrigeration

8.3 Great

15

Cyrus McCormick

Cyrus McCormick was an American inventor and manufacturer associated with the mechanical reaper, patented in 1834, which...

American 19TH Century Agriculture Machine

8.3 Great

16

Norbert Rillieux

Norbert Rillieux was a Louisiana Creole engineer who built the first industrially practical multiple-effect evaporator f...

American 19TH Century Evaporation Industrial

8.2 Great

17

Robert Fulton

Robert Fulton was an American engineer whose steamboat Clermont began commercially successful service on the Hudson Rive...

American Submarine 19TH Century Transport

8.2 Great

18

Samuel Colt

Samuel Colt was an American inventor who patented a practical revolving firearm in 1836 and built Colt's Patent Fire-Arm...

American Manufacturing 19TH Century Firearms

8.2 Great

19

Joseph Aspdin

Joseph Aspdin was an English bricklayer who patented Portland cement in 1824, naming it for its resemblance to Portland...

19TH Century Construction British Cement

8.2 Great

20

Francois Hennebique

Francois Hennebique was a French engineer who patented a reinforced concrete building system in 1892 and promoted it int...

Engineering French 19TH Century Construction

7.7 Good