Beginning of Essay
Born in Konstanz, Baden. Count von Zeppelin joined the Army at 16 and earned his commission by the time he was 20. Five years later, as a military observer for the King of Württemburg, he traveled with the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was in tha ....

Middle of Essay
.... loads, required a much larger gas envelope. To attain any speed faster than a crawl, the larger envelope had to be fashioned into sleek aerodynamic shape with small frontal area. These long, thin, 'sausage' shapes tended to be highly unstable. Slight changes in the craft's center of gravity could cause the larger volumes of hydrogen to shift wildly with sometimes with tragic results. Zeppelin's design broke the technological barrier and made his name a synonym for the airship. His solution contained the hydrogen in separate 'cells' all within a long, thin, light-weight metal frame covered with stretched fabric. His first rigid airship, the ....