On this day, the 3 June, 2016,  the American professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist, ‘The Greatest’, Muhammad Ali, died.

Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., in June 1942, he is regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century. He converted to Islam and became a Muslim after 1961, and took the name Muhammad Ali.

He had a sister and four brothers, and was named for his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay Snr., who himself was named in honour of the 19th century Republican politician and staunch abolitionsist.

He won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston in a major upset at the age of 22 in 1964.

In 1966, Ali refused to be drafted into the military, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. He was arrested, found guilty of draft evasion, and stripped of his boxing titles. He was systematically denied a boxing license in every state and stripped of his passport. As a result, he did not fight from March 1967 to October 1970, from ages 25 to almost 29 His case worked its way through the appeals process, and his conviction was overturned in 1971. 

On 20 December, 2014, Ali was hospitalised for a mild case of pneumonia, and was again hospitalised in January, 2015, for a urinary tract infection after being found unresponsive at a guest house in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was released the next day.

Once again, Ali was hospitalised in Scottsdale on 2 June, 2016, with a respiratory illness, and alhough initially his condition was described as ‘fair’, it worsened, and he died the following day from septic shock at the age of 74.

3 June, 2019