Today in Science is the birthday of somebody who really figured out how to put some zip and zing into a battle. Henry Shrapnel, born June 3, 1761, was an English army general who invented the shrapnel
shell. Shrapnel projectiles contained small shot or spherical bullets,
usually of lead, along with an explosive charge to scatter the shot as
well as fragments of the shell casing. The resulting hail of high-velocity
debris was often lethal; shrapnel caused the majority of wounds produced
by artillery in WW I. A 155mm shrapnel packed a lethal load of 800 balls.
Each projectile
was practically a shotgun which was fired, by means of the time fuze, when
the bullets shot forward with increased velocity. The result was a cone
of bullets which swept an area generally much larger than the area made
dangerous by the burst of a high explosive shell of the same caliber.

Today is also the anniversary of the day in 1856 when Cullen Whipple, of Providence, RI, patented the first practical
screw machine for making pointed screws (U.S. No. 15,052).
Prior to this invention, screws had blunt ends, and it was necessary to
drill a starter hole.