Eponym of the week: British army general Henry Shrapnel. While a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in the 1780s, he invented (on his own time and at his own expense) a hollow ball filled with shot that exploded in midair. When adopted by the British army some 20 years later, it was given the name "shrapnel shell." The "bombs bursting in air" in "The Star-Spangled Banner" are shrapnel shells.

In 1954, 30 years before the debut of the Tony Danza sitcom &q ...

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