Added 1 new A* page:I noticed it was in fact was "zeppelin week" on that Old Picture blog I linked yesterday, so if you use the "Newer Post" links at the bottom of the comments sections you'll find some more neat photos, and even videos: here's one showing clips of the Graf arriving in New York City for a ticker-tape parade after completing its record-setting round-the-world flight in 1929 (although according to one of the comments left on YouTube, the footage is from "Farewell," a film by Dutch director Gerard Nijssen, mixing clips of neat things from the '20's and '30's--this part is mostly the Graf, but for instance the commenter points out that the really cool shot of a huge zeppelin flying through a smoke screen just dropped by an airplane is the USS Los Angeles in a 1927 combat drill):
video on Youtube
The word "zeppelin" comes from the name of Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin, (1838-1917) a German count ("Graf" is German for "Count"; but I should say a Count of the Grand Duchy of Baden, rather, since that's what it was before the revolution of 1918; also, his family was a noble one dating back to the 1400s, their home town being Zepelin).
image from Deutsches Bundesarchiv (source)
Like many minor nobles, Zeppelin embarked on a military officer's career, at one point being an observer for the Union's Army of the Potomac in the American Civil War; after that stint, during a later expedition with Russians and Native Americans to the source of the Mississippi, he made his first aerial ascent in the tethered balloon of John Steiner, German member of the Union Army Balloon Corps.
Appointed adjutant to the King of Württemberg back in Europe, he served in various continental wars (Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71) until a bit of a falling out led to his retirement, with the rank of General, in 1891.
He had kindled a fascination with airships since his American expedition, however--he had unsuccessfully tried to convince the King of Württemberg of their efficacy--and once retired he spent his time in researching various airship designs, and in campaigning for government or private funds for their construction. After five years of frustration he found private backers in the Association of German Engineers, leading to the formation of a joint stock company, in which he was the majority investor, in 1898, which promptly began work on the Zeppelin LZ1, the world's first successful rigid airship. The LZ1 flew in three trials on Lake Constance in Germany in 1900
image from Library of Congress (source)
reaching a height of 410 m (1300 ft) and a speed of somewhere above 28 km/h (18 mph), which beat the French speed record by 50%. The trials may (Wikipedia pages conflict here) have ended in a crash; there were certainly more crashes with more development models in the following years, but speeds improved (58 km/h in 1907), and the public became interested; his second model was financed by donations and a public lottery, and the crash of the LZ4 in 1908 worked public interest up to such a pitch that his next collection campaign gathered 6.5 million German Marks (I don't know how much that is in current USD but it sounds good), the military bought his LZ3 model, and his airships, "Zeppelins," became all the rage.
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I noticed the latest page of the webcomic "Hard Graft" is really pretty awesome in its black and white artwork way. I first linked to them way back in 2009 as a way of thanking their author for feedback on a possible ad layout for the A* site (hah you can even see the sorta "horizon" divider I had under the top menu, and a rather wacky old banner ad of my own), and the art has fluctuated somewhat since then I guess, but dang if that isn't some nice work in that newest page, throwing down really sharp, heavy shadow in a deft, graphic way that reminds me of some of the old adventure comic strips.
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Oh and I really won't make you sit through two pages of pretty nearly the same thing in A* very often, but this seemed like one time to do it. Anyway it's a super-short episode--the next page, Monday's, will be the final page of the episode! And then right on to episode 15 on Tuesday; and 15 will really be the first that I've written with the conscious admission that I'll probably only be managing one page of it a day (previously I always liked to delude myself into thinking I could maybe get up to two per day, but reality has proven otherwise! :P), so the overall pace per page will be a bit livelier than what we've had before, I think you'll find.
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