In the 1920s and 30s, one of the most cutting edge and exciting forms of transportation was the Zeppelin.

Germany's Luftschiff-Bau Zeppelin Company created lighter than air ships that transported passengers over millions of miles worldwide.

This new form of transportation, which seemed to be the future, came to a sudden and dramatic end on

one horrific day in 1937 in New Jersey.

Learn more about the Hindenburg disaster, its cause and its aftermath on this episode of

Everything Everywhere Daily. I I previously did an episode on Zeppelin's and their history.

Just to briefly recap their story, the idea of later than air vehicles goes back to the 19th century. The initial problem

with them was learning how to control them. Zeppelin crashes were actually pretty

common in the early days as Zeppelin's were really susceptible to the wind.

However, these technical hurdles were eventually overcome. Zeppelin were really susceptible to the wind.

However, these technical hurdles were eventually overcome, and Zeppelin travel became very

safe and reliable.

The world leader in airships was the German company Luft Shifbau Zeppelin. Their flage ship was known as the

Graf Zeppelin. The Graf Zeppelin was launched in 1928 and it became world famous.

It was flown on an around-the-world trip in 1929. It flew around the Mediterranean and to South America, the Middle East, and Africa. It had a very good safety record. It flew thousands of passengers over a million miles.

And also, if you're not familiar with Zeppelin's, they were enormous.

They had an internal metallic skeleton to give it rigidity and then bags of lifting gas inside to give it buoyancy.

The Groff-SEppelin was 236 meters or 776 feet long.

You would need two football fields to park it. The airbags would provide the lift and then

propellers on the craft would provide the thrust. Despite their massive size, they really

couldn't hold that many people. The Graf Zeppelin had a

crew of 32 people and it could only hold 24 passengers. When the Nazis came to

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