Chelsea Handler

And then there were a series of bladders throughout the airship.

filled with the gas.

But there were catwalks and various ways that crew could kind of like maneuver around inside the Zeppelin itself, which is really cool.

And they would get to, you can also see the engines, the propellers off the side here, which were big diesel engines.

And the crew could actually climb out onto those things and perform maintenance while in flight.

So it was a really cool just feat of design and engineering.

Yeah, right?

It's like, do you want a helium balloon for your birthday party or do you want to ride in a fucking balloon?

Do you want to ride in a giant one?

Yeah, come on.

Let's do it.

So we're going to get to the disaster in a second.

But a lot of people forget that the Hindenburg actually made a lot of successful flights before it actually crashed.

So in 1936, the ship flew round trip across the Atlantic 17 times, including trips to both the U.S.

and Brazil.

That same year, the Hindenburg made an appearance at the Berlin Summer Olympics.

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels thought it would be a powerful symbol of German

strength and technological superiority, which is an interesting take given how this story ends.

All this brings us to May of 1937.

The Hindenburg sets off on a routine flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Lakehurst, New Jersey.