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Simon Winchester | a History of Precision Engineering and the Making of the Modern World

Hidden Forces

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The History of the Flint Lock Mechanism

Honoré Blanc was the Frenchman who invented interchangeable parts for muskets. He laid on a demonstration in a basement of a castle which still exists in Paris. The American minister to France, Thomas Jefferson, heard about it and asked if he could show gun makers how they did it. But Eli Whitney cheated his way into making 8,000 guns that were five years late. 'He belongs in the same hall as Elizabeth Holmes now,' says Sir Ken Robinson.

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