Origins

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  During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 Ferdinand von Zeppelin witnessed the practical use of balloons to carry mail and sought to develop a similar air vehicle for commercial passenger use. According to ideafinder.com, he initially had hoped to string several airships together like a train to carry passengers. He invested heavily in the dirigible's development using his own money.
  
  

Principles of Flight

• Zeppelin's airships were a long cylinder tube made of an alloy skeleton in the form of longitudinal girders and rings. They contained hydrogen or helium in separate cells or balloons to float it. Internal combustion engines propelled the airship, according to airships.net
  
  

First Flight

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  Ferdinand von Zeppelin's airship first took to the skies on July 2, 1900, over Lake Constance, Germany, and traveled for 18 minutes before making a forced landing on the lake. It made two subsequent flights later that year. Investors were reluctant to continue the project and von Zeppelin shut down his company, but kept developing better technology. By 1908, he began recording more successful flights, according to ideafinder.net.
  
  

World War I

• During World War I, the German military appropriated the airship as a weapon. The airship was larger than traditional aircraft and carried more weaponry. The problem was the airships were vulnerable to attack and easily destroyed. According to richtofen.com, airships were used for bombing runs and patrol, but were further hampered by the Kaiser's orders not to bomb London and historic and government buildings. When the British employed blackouts, Zeppelin bombs fell without much effect. Bombing raids were later authorized for London, but the results were mixed.
  
  

Postwar Uses

• Ferdinand von Zeppelin died in 1917 and Germany's defeat in 1918 briefly put an end to the airship industry. It was revived in the early 1920s by Hugo Eckener, who popularized the airship as a luxury craft with regular transatlantic flights from Germany to Brazil and the United States, according to airships.net.
  
  

Peace and Propaganda

• Eckener saw the dirigible as a vessel of peace and hoped to bridge nations with its transatlantic flights. The rising Nazi government recognized that airships had no military value but plenty of propaganda uses and used the ships on domestic goodwill tours to arouse patriotism among German citizens, according to airships.net.
  
  

End of an Era

• In 1936, the Hindenburg was launched and quickly named after the former German president Paul von Hindenburg to pre-empt any attempts by the Nazis to name it after Adolf Hitler. The Hindenburg could not find enough helium to float, so it used the highly flammable hydrogen. On May 6, 1937, it caught fire while landing at Lakehurst, N.J., killing 35 people. The disaster, the war against Germany starting in 1939, and poor economic conditions killed the era of airships, according to centennialofflight.gov.