The Hindenburg in Flames: How a Photograph Marked the End of the Airship

Before airplanes, people started using big airships, zeppelins, to travel across the Atlantic. Then one day, the most famous of them, the Hindenburg, burst into flames as it was landing. Thirty-six people were killed in this disaster captured on radio and film and in a famous photograph that sped around the world and heralded the end of airship travel.

The great thing about this book is it is like a biography of this particular photograph. Readers learn about the history of airships and of the Hindenburg, including its terrible demise, but they also learn about the photographer – who he was, how he came to be in the position to take the photo, and what happened to him and to it afterward. This book teaches you a lot – about airships, about what was happening in history at the time (this happened in between the World Wars), and about how this disaster affected air travel. Interestingly, people are now starting to build zeppelins again, but they have learned from the Hindenburg crash how to make them much safer. This book would be great for students in late middle school to high school or for anyone wanting an overview of what happened.