7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7

distant aerial warfare, which included the bombing of

London and a flight from Yambol, Bulg., of 2,800 miles

(4,500 km) toward German East Africa.

Zeppelin died before attaining his goal of transcon-

tinental flight. However, when Germany was permitted

to return to civilian flying in the mid-1920s, the

Luftschiffsbau-Zeppelin (Zeppelin Company) began

planning a trans atlantic passenger voyage. In 1928 the

company completed a new airship, the Graf Zeppelin,

which inaugurated transatlantic flight service. By the time

of its decommissioning in 1937 the Graf Zeppelin had made

590 flights, including 144 ocean crossings, and had flown

more than 1 million miles (1.6 million km). In 1929 the

craft covered about 21,500 miles (34,600 km) in a round-

the-world flight that was completed in 21 days, 5 hours,

and 54 minutes (of which only 47 hours had been spent on

the ground), yielding an average speed of some 70 miles

(112 km) per hour. On July 2, 1996, the 96th anniversary of

the inaugural flight of the LZ-1, the Zeppelin Museum

Friedrichshafen was opened in a restored railway station

on the shore of Lake Constance.

Georges Leclanché

(b. 1839, Paris, France—d. Sept. 14, 1882, Paris)

G

eorges Leclanché was a French engineer who in about

1866 invented the battery that bears his name. In

slightly modified form, the Leclanché cell is produced in

great quantities and is widely used in devices such as flash-

lights and portable radios.

After completing a technical education in 1860,

Leclanché began work as an engineer. Six years later he

developed his battery, which contained a conducting

solution (electrolyte) of ammonium chloride, a negative