TOP 10 Interesting Facts About Muhammad Ali (Part 2) Top 10 Fun Facts

10 Things You Didn't Know About Muhammad Ali (Part 2)
After defeating Sonny Liston in 1964, Muhammad Ali famously claimed that he “shook up the world,” and truer words have never been spoken. You’ve already heard a few crazy stories about him from part one, but here are our favourites…
5. The NSA Wiretapped Ali’s Phone
Declassified documents, revealed in 2013, show that the National Security Agency tapped overseas communications of Vietnam War critics, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali. A brief of those government documents suggests that Ali was kept under surveillance during his efforts to avoid the draft. During 1966 and 1967, the heavyweight boxer appealed his draft status, saying, “I’ve got nothing against them Vietcongs” and “I can fight in wars declared only by Allah himself.” He was sentenced to five years in prison, though the Supreme Court ruled in 1971 that he was entitled to conscientious objector status.
4. He Starred In A Broadway Musical
In 1969, during his suspension from boxing over his refusal to go to Vietnam, Ali was reportedly drowning in debt and still appealing his conviction. He made pocket change by touring colleges to discuss the war and he starred in the Broadway musical, “Buck White.”
He was billed under his birth name, Cassius Clay, and his Playbill bio read, “He is now appealing his five-year prison conviction and $10,000 fine for refusing to enter the armed services on religious grounds.
Ali sang nearly every song in the musical, playing a militant black lecturer addressing a meeting organized by a black political group. But he would never return to the stage after his conviction was overturned.
3. He's An Amateur Magician
"Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see."
Although he was famous for his pre-fight rhymes, Ali had some other dazzling tricks too. "Until recently, throughout his years with Parkinson's disease, Ali surprised visitors by performing sleight of hand tricks. He made red silk scarves disappear from his hand, he bit coins in half and made them whole again, and he often performed an old parlor trick - by putting his feet together and rising up on the toes of one foot while keeping his other foot flexed, he could appear to float above the ground.
2. His Olympic Gold Medal Could Be Sitting At The Bottom Of A River
In 1960, the 18-year-old fighter traveled to Rome and won the light heavyweight gold medal in the Summer Olympics. After the Rome Games, a few journalists followed Clay home to Louisville, where he suffered racial discrimination and was denied service at many downtown restaurants. After one such rejection, the story goes, he hurled his gold medal into the Ohio River. But Clay, and later Ali, gave different accounts of that act, and according to Thomas Hauser, author of the oral history “Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times,” Clay had simply lost the medal.
Fortunately, he got a replacement medal — and ongoing support from his community — in 1996.
1. He Secured The Release Of 15 U.S. Prisoners In Iraq
In November 1990, Ali met with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in Baghdad on a “goodwill tour” in an attempt to negotiate the release of 15 Americans held hostage in Iraq and Kuwait.
Ali was instantly criticized, taking flak from the likes of then-President George H.W. Bush and The New York Times, both of whom expressed concerns that he was fueling a propaganda machine. Speaking about Ali’s Parkinson’s disease, the Times wrote:
“Surely the strangest hostage-release campaign of recent days has been the ‘goodwill’ tour of Muhammad Ali, the former heavyweight boxing champion . . . he has attended meeting after meeting in Baghdad despite his frequent inability to speak clearly.”
Something worked, however. Despite running out of medication for his crippling disease and waiting more than a week to talk to Hussein, Ali was able to bring all 15 of a group of captive American soldiers home.
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