The word ‘Jumbo’ can be traced back to one very well travelled elephant. Born in the French Sudan in 1861 and huge even by elephant standards, he became the star attraction first in the Paris Zoo, then the London Zoo where he was given his name. With his fame spreading, Phineas T Barnum saw a chance to take the show to North America. A petition of 100,000 British signatures protested against the sale, but Barnum’s bid was more persuasive. Jumbo became even more popular on tours of the United States and Canada which attracted an estimated 20 million paying customers.
‘Jumbo’ soon entered the language as a description of any sizeable object. The first Jumbo Jet took to the skies in the late 1960s, fittingly crossing the Atlantic just as the remarkable elephant had done a century before.
