Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory.
Sir Basil Zaharoff, GCB, GBE was a Greek arms dealer and industrialist. One of the richest men in the world during his lifetime, Zaharoff was described as both a "merchant of death" and a "mystery man of Europe". His success was forged through his cunning, often aggressive and sharp, business tactics. These included the sale of arms to opposing sides in conflicts, sometimes delivering fake or faulty machinery and skilfully using the press to attack business rivals.
Crayford is a town and electoral ward in South East London, England, within the London Borough of Bexley. It lies east of Bexleyheath and north west of Dartford. Crayford was in the historic county of Kent until 1965. The settlement developed by the river Cray, around a ford that is no longer used.
The Maxim gun is a recoil-operated machine gun invented in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim. It was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world.
Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim was an American-born British inventor best known as the creator of the first automatic machine gun, the Maxim gun. Maxim held patents on numerous mechanical devices such as hair-curling irons, a mousetrap, and steam pumps. Maxim laid claim to inventing the lightbulb.
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince was a French artist and the inventor of an early motion-picture camera, possibly the first person to shoot a moving picture sequence using a single lens camera and a strip of (paper) film. He has been credited as the "Father of Cinematography", but his work did not influence the commercial development of cinema—owing largely to the events surrounding his 1890 disappearance.
Hiram Percy Maxim was an American radio pioneer and inventor, and co-founder of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). Hiram Percy Maxim is credited with inventing and selling the first commercially successful firearm silencer, and also with developing mufflers for internal combustion engines.
Philip Taylor Kramer was an American bass guitar player for the rock group Iron Butterfly and associated groups between 1974 and 1980. He later became a computer engineering executive and inventor. He disappeared in February 1995 and was found dead in May 1999.
Philippe Henri de Girard was a French engineer and inventor of the first flax spinning frame in 1810, and the person after whom the town of Żyrardów in Poland was named. He was also the uncredited inventor of food preservation using tin cans.
Gas-operation is a system of operation used to provide energy to operate locked breech, autoloading firearms. In gas-operation, a portion of high-pressure gas from the cartridge being fired is used to power a mechanism to dispose of the spent case and insert a new cartridge into the chamber. Energy from the gas is harnessed through either a port in the barrel or a trap at the muzzle. This high-pressure gas impinges on a surface such as a piston head to provide motion for unlocking of the action, extraction of the spent case, ejection, cocking of the hammer or striker, chambering of a fresh cartridge, and locking of the action.
Hudson Maxim, was a U.S. inventor and chemist who invented a variety of explosives, including smokeless gunpowder, Thomas Edison referred to him as "the most versatile man in America". He was the brother of Hiram Maxim, inventor of the Maxim gun and uncle of Hiram Percy Maxim, inventor of the Maxim Silencer.
Hugh Michael Seely, 1st Baron Sherwood, known as Sir Hugh Seely, 3rd Baronet of Sherwood Lodge, Nottinghamshire, from 1926 to 1941, was a British Liberal politician.
Lamont H. Young (1851–1880) was an Australian assistant geological surveyor for the New South Wales Mines Department. He mysteriously disappeared while on field-work at Bermagui, New South Wales.
John Nevil Maskelyne was an English stage magician and inventor of the pay toilet, along with other Victorian-era devices. He worked with magicians George Alfred Cooke and David Devant, and many of his illusions are still performed today. His book Sharps and Flats: A Complete Revelation of the Secrets of Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill is considered a classic overview of card sharp practices. In 1914 he founded the Occult Committee, a group to "investigate claims to supernatural power and to expose fraud".
Vickers Limited was a British engineering conglomerate. The business began in Sheffield in 1828 as a steel foundry and became known for its church bells, going on to make shafts and propellers for ships, armour plate and then artillery. Entire large ships, cars, tanks and torpedoes followed. Airships and aircraft were added, and Vickers jet airliners were to remain in production until 1965.
Tara Leigh Calico is an American woman who disappeared near her home in Belen, New Mexico, on September 20, 1988. She is widely believed to have been kidnapped. In July 1989, a Polaroid photo of an unidentified young woman and boy, gagged and seemingly bound, was televised to the public after it was found in a convenience store parking lot in Port St. Joe, Florida. Family friends thought the woman resembled Calico and contacted her mother, who then met with investigators and examined the Polaroid. She believed it was her daughter after taking "time, growth and lack of makeup" into consideration, and noted that a scar on the woman's leg was identical to one that Calico had. Scotland Yard analyzed the photo and concluded that the woman was Calico, but a second analysis by the Los Alamos National Laboratory disagreed. An FBI analysis of the photo was inconclusive.
So Goes My Love is an American 1946 comedy-drama film, produced by Universal Pictures. It is based on a true story, A Genius in the Family, the memoir of Hiram Percy Maxim, which focuses on the relationship between Maxim and his father, Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim.
Damien Nettles disappeared from Cowes on the Isle of Wight on 2 November 1996 at the age of 16 during a night out with a friend. Nothing has been seen of him since. The investigation into his disappearance has been ongoing ever since, with five men arrested in 2011, although no charges have been brought.
Punt PI is a fact-based comedy radio series on BBC Radio 4 in which Steve Punt investigates mysteries in Britain.
