MONUMENTAL JOURNEY 1931
Three men atop one of the pyramids of Giza watch as floats over the ancient necropolis near Cairo, Egypt. Launched in 1928 and named after airship pioneer Ferdinand von Zeppelin – a (count) of the German aristocracy – the dirigible balloon undertook its most famous journey in 1929, circumnavigating the globe in 21 days. Such hydrogen-buoyed craft were seen as the future of commercial air travel – until the catastrophic crash of the in 1937, killing 36 people, dealt a fatal blow to such hopes. In the 1930s, the shipped passengers and mail between Germany and Brazil before being deployed by the Nazi regime for propaganda purposes. It was scrapped in 1940 and its parts repurposed for use in military aircraft.
