John Taliaferro (Italian pronunciation: [taljaˈfɛrro]) (anglicized to "Tolliver"[1]) Thompson (December 31, 1860 – June 21, 1940) was a United States Army officer known for being the inventor of the Tommy gun.

Born on December 31, 1860, in Newport, Kentucky, Thompson grew up on a succession of Army posts and had decided on the military as a career by the age of sixteen.

After a year of class, in 1877, he gained an appointment to the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York, from where he graduated in June 1882.

[2] Among his classmates there at the academy were several men who would, like Thompson himself (who graduated 11th in a class of 37), eventually attain the rank of brigadier general or higher during their military careers, such as Edward Burr, Lansing H. Beach, Adelbert Cronkhite, Charles Treat, Edward A. Millar, Richard W. Young, Benjamin Alvord Jr., George W. McIver, Henry T. Allen, William H. Sage, Thomas B. Dugan, and William H. Allaire.

With the beginning of the Spanish–American War, Thompson was promoted to lieutenant colonel and sent to Tampa, Florida as Chief Ordnance Officer for the commander of the Cuban campaign, General William R. Shafter.

For the latter, he devised unusual tests involving firing the weapon at donated human cadavers and live cattle to assess ammunition effectiveness.

[6] Their son Marcellus Hagans Thompson was a 1906 West Point graduate who retired from the Army in 1919 as a captain to join his father's automatic weapons business.

Shortly after his death, the looming entry of the U.S. into World War II prompted the Army to order the Thompson submachine gun in large quantities, and it was used extensively during that conflict in both original and modified versions.