Sam Colt's Six-Shooter Launched The American Industrial Revolution and Sped Western Settlement

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2020

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In August of 1831, a 16-year-old from Connecticut named Sam Colt boarded a ship of missionaries bound for a round-trip voyage to Calcutta. Restless and rambunctious, with a particular fondness for blowing things up—he’d been expelled from Amherst Academy not long before for repeatedly firing a cannon from the top of a hill to the horror of frightened townspeople—Colt had long been a source of distress for his family, who hoped that this time at sea might prepare him for a stable career in a respectable trade. Instead, it would become the setting for an idea that would change the course of American history.

Today's guest is Jim Rasenberger, author of "Revolver: Sam Colt and The Six-Shooter That Changed America. " We explore the life of the inventor who introduced repeating firearms to the world. With Colt’s revolver (allegedly dreamed up during that long stint at sea), one could for the first time shoot multiple bullets from a gun without reloading—a revolutionary mechanism that would help spark the American Industrial Revolution and speed the settlement of the West.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of North America podcast is a sweeping historical saga of the United States,
0:09.4	Canada, and Mexico from their deep origins to our present epoch.
0:14.2	Join me, Mark Vinet, on this exciting, fascinating epic journey through time, focusing on the compelling,
0:20.8	wonderful, and tragic stories of North America's inhabitants, heroes, villains, leaders,
0:27.1	environment, and geography.
0:29.5	I invite you to come along for the ride.
0:44.3	History is in just a bunch of names and dates and facts.
0:47.5	It's the collection of all the stories throughout human history that explain how and why we got here.
0:52.9	Welcome to the History and Plug podcast, where we look at the forgotten, neglected, strange,
0:57.9	and even counterfactual stories that made our world what it is.
1:02.1	I'm your host, Scott Rank.
1:11.4	God created men equal, but it was Samuel Colt that made them equal.
1:17.1	That was an old saying in the West that spoke to the significance of Samuel Colt and his invention, the revolver.
1:24.1	It allowed the shooter to fire multiple times before having to reload the gun, unlike older single shot firearms
1:29.6	that had to be reloaded after each shot.
1:31.6	It's almost impossible to understate the importance of the revolver and the imagination of America during the period of Manifest Destiny
1:38.5	when Americans start moving in droves in the 1830s and 1840s to the American West.
1:43.9	Many jokingly said you only needed two things when going out West, your Bible and your revolver.
1:49.3	The reason that it captured the American imagination had to do with the actions of the Texas Rangers in the 1840s.
1:55.8	They were fighting the Comanche and the Comanche could fire as many as 20 arrows per minute,
2:00.4	but for the Rangers they could only use single shot weapons and maybe had a few of them on their person,
2:05.4	and it wasn't until they had a revolver where they could fire with one hand, the tide of the war turned.
	...

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