Carl Norden

After attending a boarding school in Barneveld, Netherlands, he was educated at the ETH Zürich in Switzerland and then emigrated to the United States in 1904.

Along with Elmer Sperry, Norden worked on the first gyrostabilizers for United States ships, and became recognized for his contributions to military hardware.

In 1920, he began work on the Norden bombsight for the United States Navy.

The device was used to drop bombs from high-altitude aircraft, accurately enough in practice to hit a 100-foot (30 m) circle from an altitude of 21,000 feet (6,400 m), but this accuracy was never achieved in combat.

[1] His work on inventing the Norden bombsight was featured in Malcolm Gladwell's book The Bomber Mafia.