They were cigars the size of ocean liners that floated through the clouds. Cow intestines filled with hydrogen held them up. The world’s first flight attendant served champagne and caviar.

Zeppelins seem almost too strange to have been real now. But they once carried paying passengers across the Atlantic in style. People foresaw a time when Zeppelins would dock at the top of the Empire State Building. For a moment they looked like the future.

And then came that awful day in May 1937 when the greatest Zeppelin of them all, the Hindenburg, exploded.

Who invented the Zeppelin? (The clue is in the name!)

What was it like to fly in one?

And why did the Hindenburg explode?

Find out all this and more on today’s episode! Our guest is the wonderful Dan Grossman, aviation historian and the man behind airships.net, one of the great websites of our time (if you’re into airships).

Produced and edited by Freddy Chick. Executive Producer is Charlotte Long.

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