Aimo Lahti

Aimo Johannes Lahti (April 28, 1896 – April 19, 1970) was a self-taught Finnish weapons designer. Of the 50 weapons he designed, the best known is the Suomi M-31 SMG. Other well-known weapon designs of his include the Lahti-Saloranta M/26 LMG, Lahti L-35 pistol, and Lahti L-39 anti-tank rifle. Lahti also designed the 7,62 ITKK 31 VKT anti-aircraft machine gun and the 20 ITK 40 VKT anti-aircraft cannon.

His work is considered decisive in defending Finnish independence and increasing trust in the reliability of domestic weapons produced there.

Biography

Early years

Aimo Johannes Lahti was born in Viiala on 28 April 1896, to Evert Williamson Lahti and Ida Sophia Carlsdaughter née Viitanen, the oldest of five boys. He had a safe and somewhat wild childhood. Lahti did not enjoy school and left after the sixth year of elementary school. He started working in the Viiala glass factory when he was 14 years old. In the same year, he bought his first weapon, a Berdan rifle, with five marks he had earned in the factory. Lahti was fascinated by the rifle’s mechanism and visited local gunsmith Säteri with whom he examined the weapon closely. Aimo Lahti visited him several times, becoming familiar with weapon mechanisms. Lahti served his conscription in central Finland’s regiment during 1918 and 1919. On October 20, 1919, he married Ida Dagmar Lassila (1 December 1890 – 27 October 1968) with whom he had a son, Olavi Johannes Lahti. Olavi was later a pilot in the Finnish Air Force and died in 1944.

Aimo

Aimo (commonly known as Saint Aimo, also Aymon or Hamon) was a mystic and monk. Born in an area near Rennes, France, Aimo entered the Benedictine monastery of Savigny, in Savigny, Normandy. There he took care of two monks who had leprosy, and it was believed that Aimo himself had contracted the disease. This led the superiors to designate him a lay brother, and they required Aimo to keep apart from the rest of the community, lest the illness spread. When it was seen that he did not have leprosy, Aimo was ordained a priest. Aimo is mainly remembered for charitable kindness especially to the sick and for his mystical experiences.

References

Lahti

Lahti (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈlɑxti], Swedish: Lahtis) is a city and municipality in Finland.

Lahti is the capital of the Päijänne Tavastia region. It is situated on a bay at the southern end of lake Vesijärvi about 100 kilometres (60 mi) north-east of the capital Helsinki. In English, the Finnish word Lahti literally means bay. The Lahti region is growing and is one of the main economic hubs of Finland.

The coat of arms of the city depicts a train wheel surrounded by flames.

History

Lahti was first mentioned in documents in 1445. The village belonged to the parish of Hollola and was located at the medieval trade route of Ylinen Viipurintie, which linked the towns of Hämeenlinna and Vyborg.

The completion of the Riihimäki – St. Petersburg railway line in 1870 and the Vesijärvi canal in 1871 turned Lahti into a lively station, and industrial installations began to spring up around it. For a long time, the railway station at Vesijärvi Harbour was the second busiest station in Finland. Craftsmen, merchants, a few civil servants and a lot of industrial workers soon mixed in with the existing agricultural peasantry.

Lahti (surname)

Lahti is a Finnish surname meaning "bay" or "gulf". Notable people with the surname include:

List of minor planets: 1001–2000