Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali was an American boxer who became one of the most famous athletes in history. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1942, and he died in 2016. Ali won the world heavyweight boxing title three different times. He was also known for speaking out about race, religion, and war during one of the most heated periods in American history.

Ali was born with the name Cassius Clay. He started boxing when he was 12 years old, after his bicycle was stolen and a police officer suggested he learn how to fight. He turned out to be a natural. At 18, he won a gold medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. Four years later, he beat the champion Sonny Liston and became the youngest heavyweight champion ever at age 22.

Soon after winning the title, Clay joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Many sportswriters and fans refused to use his new name for years. Ali insisted on it anyway. He said his old name was a "slave name" given to his ancestors by the people who enslaved them.

In 1967, the U.S. government ordered Ali to join the army and fight in the Vietnam War. He refused. He said his religion did not allow him to fight in wars, and he did not believe the war was just. "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong," he said. Boxing officials stripped him of his title. Courts found him guilty of dodging the draft. He could not box for nearly four years, right in the middle of his best fighting years. The Supreme Court finally ruled in his favor in 1971.

When Ali came back to the ring, he won some of the most famous fights ever held. In the 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" in Zaire, he beat the powerful champion George Foreman by letting Foreman tire himself out. In the 1975 "Thrilla in Manila," he beat his great rival Joe Frazier in a brutal 14 rounds.

Ali retired in 1981. A few years later, doctors told him he had Parkinson's disease, which slowly took away his ability to speak and move easily. Even so, he kept traveling the world for charity work. In 1996, with shaking hands, he lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta in front of a global audience. He had once called himself "The Greatest." By the end of his life, many people agreed.