Mikhail Kalashnikov and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (Wikimedia Commons)

Kalashnikov was born on November 10, 1919 in Siberia, and had 17 siblings.

In 1938, he joined the Red Army and designed the machine gun after being asked by a fellow soldier why the Russians could not come up with a gun that would match the ones used by the Germans. The automatic rifle's simplicity made it reliable, easy to maintain and cheap to manufacture. 

Kalashnikov received various awards such as the Order of Lenin and the Hero of Socialist Labour, but he made little money from the rifle.

The inventor of the refile refused to accept responsibility for the many people killed by his weapon, blaming the policies of other countries that acquired it.

“I sleep soundly,” he said. “I created a weapon to defend the motherland. It was not my fault that it was sometimes used where it should not have been. That is the fault of politicians.”

However, pride in his invention was tempered with sadness at its use by criminals and child soldiers.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated with the AK-47 rifle in 1981, and Osama bin Laden used it as a prop in his recruiting videos. Both sides used the weapon during the Iran-Iraq War during which at least half a million soldiers were killed. 

Read more at The Washington Post.

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