8th July 1838: Ferdinand von Zeppelin was born as the son of Friedrich Graf
von Zeppelin and his wife Amélie in Konstanz, Germany.
1853: Further education at the Polytecnikum in Stuttgart.
1858: He studied in Tuebingen engineering and chemistry.
1859: Zeppelin had to stop his study. He had to be engineer during the austrian-
italian war.
1863: He first flew in a balloon.
1864: Zeppelin went back to Germany.
1869: He maried Isabella Frein von Wolf. They had a child together.
1870/71: He took part in the German-French war.
1874: Zeppelin had the idea to construct a rigid airship.
1891: After his army duty he started to construct it.
1896: He took part in the Verein Deutscher Ingineure (VDI). A committee judged
his project and found it positive.
1898: Zeppelin founded the „Aktiengesellschaft zur Foerderung der
Luftschifffahrt“, a company supporting aeronautics.
1900: Start of the first dirigeable airship LZ1 in Manzell at the lake Bodensee.
The test was good, but no one wanted to finance Zeppelin’s company.
It had to be liquidated. Also the VDI refused to finance Zeppelin.
1903: Zeppelin financed the construction of the second airship with the
gains of a lottery.
1906: The second airship was destroyed by a hurricane. First flight of the
third airship Z1.
1908: After many successful flights, the Z1 was bought by the Army.
1909: Zeppelin founded the „Luftschiffbau-Zeppelin GmbH“.
1913: He also founded the „Zeppelin-Wohlfahrt GmbH“ for social wellfare.
1914: He transported over 34.000 persons in his Zeppelins.
1917: Zeppelin died.
I think, Zeppelin was a very ingenius person. And inspite many failures he
continued to fight for his ideas and constructions. A Zeppelin is also a
very good thing: So proud and gigantic.