Ferdinand von Zeppelin

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was a German general who became the inventor of the rigid airship that carries his name. Born in 1838 into a noble family from Mecklenburg and raised near Konstanz, he trained as an army officer in Württemberg, observed the Union army during the American Civil War, and made his first balloon ascent in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1863. After a command setback in 1890 forced him to retire from the army with the rank of lieutenant general, he devoted himself to airship design, building on a rigid frame holding separate gas bags. He founded the company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin to build the craft, and his name became synonymous with airships and long-distance flight until the 1930s. He died in 1917.