Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, in full Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich Graf von Zeppelin, was born on 8 July 1838 in Konstanz, Baden. He received a military commission in 1858 and made the first of several balloon ascensions in Minnesota in 1863 while acting as a military observer for the Union Army during the American Civil War. He saw military action in 1866 during the Seven Weeks’ War and in 1870–71 during the Franco-German War, serving successively in the armies of Württemberg, Prussia, and imperial Germany. He retired in 1890 and devoted the rest of his life to the creation of the rigid airship for which he is known. Zeppelin struggled for 10 years to produce airship. The initial flight took place on 2 July 1900 and was not entirely successful, thought it did have the effect of promoting the airship to the degree that public subscriptions and donations thereafter funded Zeppelin's work.

The German government was quick to perceive the advantage of airships over the as yet poorly developed airplanes, and, when Zeppelin achieved 24-hour flight in 1906, he received commissions for an entire fleet. More than 100 zeppelins were used for military operations in World War I. A passenger service known as Delag (Deutsche-Luftschiffahrts AG) was established in 1910, but Zeppelin died on 8 March 1917, before attaining his goal of transcontinental flight.