Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 17 1942 and died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on June 3 2016 at the age of 74. He took up boxing at 12 under the Louisville policeman Joe Martin and won the light-heavyweight gold medal at the Rome Olympics in 1960, turning professional weeks later. On February 25 1964 he upset Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship; days after the fight he announced his membership in the Nation of Islam and, on March 6 1964, he was given the name Muhammad Ali by Elijah Muhammad. After defending the title — Britannica counts 19 successful defenses of the heavyweight title across his career — he refused induction into the U.S. Army on April 28 1967 on religious grounds at the height of the Vietnam War, was stripped of his titles and boxing licenses, convicted of draft evasion on June 20 1967, and barred from the ring for three and a half years. He returned in October 1970; on March 8 1971 he lost the Fight of the Century to Joe Frazier by unanimous decision, and on June 28 1971 the Supreme Court unanimously reversed his conviction in Clay v. United States. He regained the heavyweight title by knocking out George Foreman in the eighth round in Kinshasa on October 30 1974 (the Rumble in the Jungle), beat Frazier again in the Thrilla in Manila on October 1 1975, lost the title to Leon Spinks in February 1978 and became the first three-time heavyweight champion by beating Spinks on September 15 1978. After two further defeats — Larry Holmes in 1980 and Trevor Berbick on December 11 1981 — he retired with a record of 56-5 and 37 knockouts. Diagnosed with Parkinson syndrome in 1984, he lit the Olympic cauldron in Atlanta on July 19 1996 and devoted his last decades to humanitarian work; an estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of Louisville at his funeral in June 2016.