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40 Years of FedEx Fun Facts
1. FedEx has been in business for 40 years. To celebrate, we’ve compiled some of the most unique
and unusual moments in our collective corporate history. We bet you didn’t know that…
2. FedEx used 389 Federal Express employees and 14 Dassault Falcon jets to deliver 186 packages
overnight to 25 U.S. cities on its first day in business.
3. FedEx helped bring Jaws to life by carrying the star, a 13-foot tiger shark from Florida, in a 15-foot
casket to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., where the film was shot, in 1974.
4. FedEx Express transported 630 tons (504,000 bottles) of 2004 Beaujolais Nouveau wine from
Lyon-Saint-Exupery Airport to Japanese enthusiasts anticipating the annual uncorking on
November 18, 2004.
5. FedEx Canada diverted an aircraft to the small community of Goose Bay in Newfoundland and
Labrador to rescue 60 puppies and delivered them to Halifax, Nova Scotia where they found new
homes.
6. After three five-week-old orphaned cougar kittens were found by a Duvall, Wash., homeowner in
2004, FedEx worked with the Memphis Zoo to transport them to their new home.
7. In 1985, RPS Inc. (now FedEx Ground) is founded in Pittsburgh, PA and introduces bar code
labeling to the ground transportation industry.
8. Seventeen classic Ferraris, worth millions of dollars, were shipped via FedEx from Brussels to the
U.S. for a car show.
9. Since 2005, FedEx Freight has delivered over 120,000 live Christmas trees to military troops and
their families across the U.S.
10. FedEx installed its very first drop-box in 1975.
11. Fedex.com’s interNetShip made FedEx the first company to allow customers to process shipments
online.
12. FedEx transported 127 crates of historic Machu Picchu artifacts from Newark, N.J. to Lima, Peru to
be displayed in their new museum home.
13. FedEx Freight shipped the 3,000 lb. Spirit of Liberty Bell from Bryn Mawr, Penn., to Fort Hood,
Texas, for the Veterans of Foreign Wars Foundation.
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14. In 1913, C.J. Tower & Sons – the forerunner of FedEx Trade Networks—began operations as a
customs broker in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
15. FedEx Custom Critical moved 70,000 sea turtle eggs from the oil-threatened Gulf Coast to an
incubation facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL where the hatchlings were
later released into the Atlantic Ocean.
16. The first FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinko’s) store, which opened in Santa Barbara, Calif., in
1970, was so small that the copier was rolled out on the sidewalk during busy times to
accommodate walk-up customers.
17. FedEx transported the yacht for the U.S. Paralympic Sailing Team from the East Coast to Sydney,
Australia, for the 2000 Paralympic Games.
18. In 1981 Federal Express introduced the Overnight Letter.
19. FedEx transported the “Phoenix” capsule, a device used to aid in the rescue of 33 miners who
were trapped for nearly ten weeks in a Chilean mine. Following the rescue, the capsule toured the
globe before returning to Santiago, Chile.
20. Two giant pandas, Le Le and Ya Ya, made their way to the Memphis Zoo from China via a custompainted FedEx MD-11 jet, which was renamed "The FedEx PandaExpress" during the 15-hour
journey.
21. There are 365 hybrid-electric vehicles in FedEx’s fleet. Since hitting the road in 2004, 300,000
gallons of fuel have been saved.
22. FedEx shipped a windmill from Denmark.
23. FedEx transported Russian Empress Catherine the Great's collection of historic artifacts from St.
Petersburg to Memphis for a special exhibition.
24. A Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter weighing 11,000 lbs. was shipped via FedEx to Narita, Japan.
25. In 2003, FedEx Express and FedEx Home Delivery teamed to deliver over 400,000 copies of
“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” to eager readers.
26. FedEx transported an eight-ton statue of Filipino war hero Dr. Jose P. Rizal, who inspired the 1896
revolution against Spanish domination, from the Philippines to Spain.
27. A four-ton high press water drill and 5,700 lbs. of rescue equipment were flown to Midland, Texas,
by FedEx to aid in the rescue of 18-month-old Jessica McClure from a well in 1987.
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28. FedEx shipped a five-ton communications satellite from Los Angeles to a remote site in China.
29. FedEx Freight driver Don Logan was crowned National Grand Champion at the 2012 National
Truck Driving Championships.
30. FedEx shipped a table owned by Vincent van Gogh from Auvers-sur-Oise, France to Basel,
Switzerland where it was part of an exhibition.
31. FedEx shipped a delectable three-tonne shipment of a chocolate replica of the Notre-Dame
Cathedral from the Salon du Chocolat show in Paris to the Chocolate Show Event in New York.
32. FedEx Carbon-Neutral Envelope Shipping was introduced at no cost to consumers to help improve
the carbon footprint not only at FedEx, but also for customers’ businesses.
33. The first color copier used by FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinko’s) was at a center in Topeka,
KS. It was operated by the one and only person trained to do so – a blind man.
34. In 1987, FedEx Canada was the first Canadian courier to use dedicated airlift.
35. FedEx shipped a giant snowball from Wisconsin to a lucky child in Memphis.
36. FedEx specially-chartered an Airbus A310 to return 19 penguins and two sea otters to the
Audubon Aquarium of the Americas after an eight-month refuge in California following Hurricane
Katrina.
37. The FedEx hub in Oakland relies heavily on solar power for its energy use. FedEx unveiled one of
California's largest corporate solar-power installations at its Oakland Hub in 2005. Today the 904kilowatt solar array provides approximately 80 percent of the peak load demand for the facility and
adds nearly one megawatt of zero-pollution electric generating capacity to the city of Oakland.
38. In 2005, FedEx launched around the world flights-Eastbound and Westbound-to provide faster,
better connectivity to the major markets around the world.
39. FedEx transported 90 tons of stranded materials for the "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition," including
a 3,000 pound piece of the ship's hull, from Milan, Italy, to Atlanta, Ga., via a FedEx Express MD11 in 2006.
40. FedEx Ground handled the just-in-time shipment of 164,000 Monopoly: Here & Now games to East
Longmeadow, Mass., for Hasbro in 2006.
41. In 2005 FedEx Office took on a job from Wal-Mart that “couldn’t be done” - to produce 6.4 million
black and white fliers in a matter of two days? FedEx Office made the impossible possible and
delivered all 6.4 million copies to the world’s largest retailer just in time.