Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali was the greatest heavyweight boxer who ever lived, and something rarer still — an athlete who sacrificed his career for his conscience. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky, he won an Olympic gold medal in 1960 and the world heavyweight title in 1964, announcing his conversion to Islam and his new name that same year. Ali unified dazzling speed, punishing power, and a relentless verbal wit into a persona that transcended sport. When he refused induction into the U.S. Army in 1967, declaring opposition to the Vietnam War, he was stripped of his title and banned from boxing for more than three years — a principled stand that cost him his athletic prime. Returning to the ring, he reclaimed the heavyweight championship in 1974's famed "Rumble in the Jungle" against George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, and again in 1978. In all, he won the world title on three separate occasions and won 56 professional bouts. Named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Century in 1999 and awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, Ali died on June 3, 2016, in Scottsdale, Arizona.