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The Gatling gun is considered to be the first successfull machine gun in history. It was invented by American inventor Richard Jordan Gatling (1818–1903) in 1861. It featured multiple rotating barrels which were rotated by hand. As a handwheel was cranked, the barrels rotated and each barrel sequentially loaded a single cartridge from a top-mounted magazine, fired off the shot and then ejected the spent casing. After inventing the Gatling gun in 1861, Richard Jordan Gatling founded the “Gatling Gun Company“ in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1862 to market the gun. Although the gun was developed during the Civil War (1861–1865), it saw very little action. In 1866 the US Government officially started purchasing Gatling guns. In 1870, Richard Jordan Gatling sold his patents for the Gatling gun to Colt. In 1893, Gatling patented a Gatling gun that replaced the hand cranked mechanism with an electric motor. Gatling remained president of the Gatling Gun Company until it was fully absorbed by Colt in 1897. The hand-cranked Gatling gun was declared obsolete by the United States Army in 1911. Music: Music: The Descent by Kevin MacLeod () 3D Animation done using:
