On May 6, 1937—85 years ago this month—a giant German airship named the Hindenburg was about to touch down in Lakehurst, New Jersey.
The Hindenburg was a zeppelin—essentially an enormous balloon. In the 1920s and 1930s, before routine plane travel, such aircraft ruled the skies. And no zeppelin was more spectacular than the Hindenburg.
It was as tall as a 12-story building and as long as two football fields. Passengers on board roamed two floors of elegant rooms tucked into the center of the aircraft. The zeppelin was powered by four car-sized engines and kept aloft by more than 50 million gallons of hydrogen. At the time, it was considered the most luxurious—and safest—way of traveling across the Atlantic Ocean.
But as the Hindenburg neared the ground in New Jersey, it suddenly burst into flames. Eyewitnesses looked on in horror.
No one knows exactly why the airship caught fire. Some experts believe leaking hydrogen may have been ignited by electricity in the air, possibly from a recent thunderstorm.
Amazingly, of the 97 people aboard, 62 survived. The fiery crash was caught on news film, and history remembers the Hindenburg like it does the Titanic—as a terrible tragedy.