90 years ago today, on 9 November 1918, Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany abdicated bringing an end to the German monarchy.

 

Ten years to the day earlier, on 9 November 1908, he attended the acceptance ceremony for the first rigid airship to be commissioned into the German Army. The LZ 3, built by Count von Zeppelin, had made her first flight nearly three years earlier but had been refused by the German Army as not performing to their requirements. A larger airship was ordered, the LZ 4, which first flew in June 1908. However it was destroyed on a trial flight in August. By that time the German High Command urgently wanted a rigid airship, so it accepted the LZ 3, giving it the military designation Z I.