Portrait of Frederick W. Smith

Birthday profile

Frederick W. Smith

Frederick W. Smith, American businessman, founded FedEx (died 2025)

Born
August 11, 1944
Died
June 21, 2025
Zodiac sign
Leo
Birth year
1944

About Frederick W. Smith

Frederick Wallace Smith was an American business magnate and investor. He was the founder and chairman of FedEx Corporation, the world's largest express transportation company. Smith stepped down as CEO in June 2022 and was succeeded by Raj Subramaniam. Considered one of the most successful transportation entrepreneurs in the world, Smith had an estimated net worth of $5.3 billion at the time of his death according to Forbes. During his teenage years, Smith co-founded Ardent Studios along with childhood friends John Fry and John King. The studio would go on to record a number of seminal soul and rock acts on the Stax label and is closely associated with the acclaimed Memphis band Big Star. Smith attended elementary school at Presbyterian Day School in Memphis and high school at Memphis University School and became an amateur pilot as a teenager. Smith became a member and eventually the president of the Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity and the Skull and Bones secret society.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Frederick W. Smith was born

Frederick W. Smith was born in 1944. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1944

  • #1 song"Swinging on a Star" – Bing Crosby
  • Top movieGoing My Way
  • Best-selling bookStrange Fruit – Lillian Smith

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentGreen Bay Packers win NFL Championship
  • Top headlineD-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6
  • Technology milestoneHarvard Mark I computer begins operations
  • Defining fadBobby socks
  • Notable inventionKidney dialysis machine
  • World population2.39 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population138.4M

1944 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Frederick W. Smith's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19442026
Gas$0.21$3.45/gal
Average home$5,800$435,000
Average income$4,200$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.27$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population138.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.