May 15th: First Machine Gun Patented, 1718

It was invented by James Puckle, and it was called the Defence Gun. It could fire 63 shots in 7 minutes.

The gun could fire two kinds of bullets: round ones, for Christian enemies, and square ones for the Muslim Turks, to show them the advantages of Christianity.
Read article here.


Pictured: The Puckle Defence gun. From an 1896 publication by George O. Shields.