Zeppelin

A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century.

A rigid airship is a type of airship in which the envelope is supported by an internal framework rather than by being kept in shape by the pressure of the lifting gas within the envelope, as in blimps and semi-rigid airships.

Count or Countess is a title in European countries for a noble of varying status, but historically deemed to convey an approximate rank intermediate between the highest and lowest titles of nobility.

Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin was a German general and later aircraft manufacturer, who founded the Zeppelin airship company.

ZEPPELIN 1971; Michael York, Elke Sommer by Igor Kozorog

Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874 and developed in detail in 1893.

Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song (Live Video) by RHINO

They were patented in Germany in 1895 and in the United States in 1899.

After the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the word zeppelin came to be commonly used to refer to all rigid airships.

Zeppelins were first flown commercially in 1910 by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG, the world's first airline in revenue service.

By mid-1914, DELAG had carried over 10,000 fare-paying passengers on over 1,500 flights.

During World War I the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins as bombers and scouts, killing over 500 people in bombing raids in Britain.

World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918.

A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy.

The defeat of Germany in 1918 temporarily slowed down the airship business.

Although DELAG established a scheduled daily service between Berlin, Munich, and Friedrichshafen in 1919, the airships built for this service eventually had to be surrendered under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which also prohibited Germany from building large airships.

Friedrichshafen is an industrial city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance in Southern Germany, near both the borders of Switzerland and Austria.

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers.

Munich is the capital and largest city of the German state of Bavaria, on the banks of River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps.

An exception was made allowing the construction of one airship for the US Navy, which saved the company from extinction.

In 1926 the restrictions on airship construction were lifted and with the aid of donations from the public, work was started on the construction of LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin.

This revived the company's fortunes, and during the 1930s the airships Graf Zeppelin and the larger LZ 129 Hindenburg operated regular transatlantic flights from Germany to North America and Brazil.

A transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, from Europe, Africa or the Middle East to North America, Central America, South America, or vice versa.

The Art Deco spire of the Empire State Building was originally designed to serve as a mooring mast for Zeppelins and other airships, although it was found that high winds made this impossible and the plan was abandoned.

The Hindenburg disaster in 1937, along with political and economic issues, hastened the demise of the Zeppelins.