Zeppelin

A "zeppelin" is a type of rigid airship made by the Zeppelin company from the early 1900's thru the 1930's.

The name comes from the inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin who originated the design.

The term is sometimes informally used as a genericized trademark to refer to all rigid airships of that era. But in formal usage, it refers only to the aircraft produced by that company.

The most successful zeppelin was the Graf Zeppelin which flew more than 1 million miles and circumnavigated the globe.

The most famous zeppelin was the Hindenburg which caught fire and was destroyed in Lakehurst New Jersey on May 7,1936.

During World War I, over a hundred zeppelins were built for the German military. Some were used to bomb London. These bombing raids were some of the first examples of strategic bombing.