Ferdinand Von Zeppelin

Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich Graf (Count) von Zeppelin was a German aircraft manufacturer who went on to build the first successful rigid air ship, called the Zeppelin. Count Zeppelin first started his career in Germany building military aircraft for the German army. He got into ballooning when he mover to the United States, to work and learn with Thaddeus S.C. Lowe during the American Civil war. Soon after moving to America, all balloon research was placed off limits to civilians, so Count Zeppelin moved back to Germany. He returned to America for a second time shortly after, in 1869, where he worked with prot. Lowe again to learn all that he could about ballooning.
Count Zeppelin became intrigued by the idea of building a guidable balloon, so from the 1880's onward he focused his energy on creating a design to do so. In 1899 he began construction on the first guidalbe rigid airship, and it was a success.
The public fell in love with the idea of the Zeppelin and began making donations to Count Zeppelin, so he kept building and improving new models of the Zeppelin. In 1909 a Zeppelin was bought by the German military, and in the same year the airships began to be used as a means of transportation for civilians.
Count Von Zeppelin was very successful in his revolutionary creation of the Zeppelin. He died in 1917, luckily not having to wittiness the disastrous crash of the LZ129.