He was "The Greatest."
Boxing legend Muhammad Ali, 74, died Friday in an Arizona hospital. A family spokesman told the Associated Press that he died of septic shock "due to unspecified natural causes" at 9:10 p.m., spending the last hour of his life surrounded by his family.
Ali's funeral is Friday at 2 p.m. at the KFC Yum! Center in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky and will be open to the public. Eulogies will be given by former President Bill Clinton, Billy Crystal and Bryant Gumbel.
The spokesman said Ali was a citizen of the world and he wanted people of all walks of life to be able to attend. The funeral will be translated and streamed on the internet.
President Barack Obama, who keeps a pair of boxing gloves worn by Ali in his private study off the Oval Office, said Saturday that Ali "shook up the world and the world is better for it."
Obama likened Ali to other civil rights leaders of his era, and said the boxer stood with Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela in fighting for what was right.
With a wit as sharp as his punches, Ali dominated sports for two decades before time and Parkinson's disease, triggered by thousands of blows to the head, ravaged his body, muted his majestic voice and ended his storied career in 1981.
At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, his hands trembled uncontrollably as he lit the torch to signify the start of the Games. It was a performance as riveting as some of his fights.
Here are 10 things to know about the life and career of boxing legend Muhammad Ali:
• He was born Cassius Marcellus Clay in Louisville, Ky., on Jan. 17, 1942.
• He joined the Nation of Islam in 1965 and called himself Muhammad Ali.
• His lighting the Olympic cauldron was the signature act of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
• Clay began to box at age 12. His bicycle was stolen, and when Clay went to report it, Louisville police officer Joe Martin suggested he come learn to box at his club.
• Clay was a member of the 1960 Olympic boxing team and won the gold medal in the light heavyweight division.
• Clay was a professional heavyweight champion at age 22, defeating Sonny Liston for the title.
• On religious grounds, Ali refused military induction in 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War.
• As he fought the U.S. government in court, he was stripped of his title and barred from competing for 3 1/2 years, in the prime of his career. In 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled he could fight. That year, Ali easily won his comeback fight against Jerry Quarry in Atlanta.
• His last fight came in December 1981 against Trevor Berbick in the Bahamas, which Ali won.
• He suffered from Parkinson's syndrome for most of his life after his boxing career and couldn't speak. (The diagnosis came in 1982.)
QUOTES
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see.”
“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.”
“I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize, but get used to me. Black, confident, cocky. My name, not yours. My religion, not yours. My goals, my own. Get used to me.”
About the Author
