Muhammad Ali

During the 1960s and 1970s, no person in American sports was more famous than world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali. Ali’s fame resulted from more than just his boxing title. He was an outspoken supporter of civil rights, and a role model for young African-Americans. He also had a noteworthy personality and a gift for creating amusing poems.

One poem was a description of his speed and precise punching in the ring. One line was “Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee.”

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. in 1942, he first came to world attention in 1960 when he won the light-heavyweight Olympic boxing championship. Following this amateur victory he turned professional and in 1964 took the heavyweight title away from Sonny Liston. In a rematch, Liston went down in the first round for another Ali victory.

The boxing authorities took Ali’s title away in 1967 when he refused military service in the Vietnam War for religious reasons; the U.S. Supreme Court reversed this decision in 1971.

Ali went on to defeat George Foreman in 1974 and regain the championship. In 1978, he lost to Leon Spinks, but then defeated him the same year, thus becoming the only boxer to win the title three times. Ali retired in 1981 with a remarkable record of 55 wins and just 5 losses.