About this site and its creator

Why?

Basically, this website is part of my training as a digital historian. For the Hist 697 class, I am required to create a digital history project. Presently this consists of creating a website with a scholarly and historical theme. I chose to research and present the pivotal event at Echterdingen in the history of the Zeppelin airship. I am interested in German history specifically and aviation in general. It's always grand when two interests can be combined. The basis of this website rests on the research completed for a paper done for Hist 731, also taken this semester (Spring 2006). As I began the research for aviation in the Victorian period (the time frame with which I had to work for the Hist 731 class), I was overwhelmed by the topics that presented themselves for possible projects.

Originally I planned on researching and presenting information about a broad array of aviators from three main European countries. Most notable in the history of European aviation are the Montgolfier brothers, Lois Bleriot, and Alberto Santos-Dumount in France, Sir George Cayley in England, and Otto Lilienthal and Count Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich von Zeppelin. Unique to Count Zeppelin's account is the massive amount of public attention and payed to him and his airships, and the pride and unity that were felt among the German people. The Zeppelin airships, after the crash of the fourth ship at Echterdingen and the subsequent spontaneous public fund raising, were seen as a symbol of the German population, and truly, without the financial and emotional support from the common people, the future of the Zeppelin airships would have died on the field of Echterdingen. The paper and the website were created in an effort to portray the phenomenon and euphoria surrounding the Zeppelin airships.

How?

I endeavored to make this site as simply and easily as possible, yet my knowledge of and desire to use PHP intervened much too frequently. This site could easily have been created with pure XHTML and CSS, with no need for scripting, but there are a few things that PHP makes much nicer. For example, by using PHP I was able to have a single place for editing the header, menus, and footer. Basically the site is laid out like this:

• The index.php page contains the header, menus and footer.
• Depending on which menu is clicked another page is inserted, or included, into the index.php page.
• Then, depeding upon which link is clicked within this second level page, a third page is included which displays the content.

The Contents page shows the basic layout with the second level pages as the main options, and the tertiary level pages as the sub-links.

Extreme effort was taken to make all of the pages pass the XHTML 1.0 Strict, and CSS validation tests. I have ever been a stickler for doing things the 'correct' way, and creating this website was no exception.

As explained on the Resources page, the images were all found on the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. Most of the photographs, scans, and the banner work were cropped and edited using the Gimp or Adobe Photoshop. Where possible no editing was done to the image to preserve the historical authenticity.

Me

My name is Ammon Shepherd. I am a graduate student at George Mason University. Currently I am pursuing a Masters in Arts in History. My focus is on European Studies (particularly Germany) and new media. In January 2006 I was awarded a position as a Graduate Research Assistant for the Center for History and New Media, a part of the History Department at George Mason.

I have been in the technical and web business since 2001. My first job in the field of computers was a computer technician and support for a large charter school in Arizona. While there I taught three computer classes to high school level students. I have also been the webmaster, technical lead, and server administrator for a small technology and web company called grumpet.com.

My future plans are to further the noble work of combining the study, research, and teaching of history with modern technology.