Four weeks after the United States Supreme Court overturned Muhammad Ali’s 1967 conviction for draft evasion, the world’s greatest boxer won his first title since returning to boxing after being stripped of his world heavyweight crown four years earlier, for refusing, on religious grounds, to be drafted into the US Army.

He beat his fellow Louisvillian Jimmy Ellis at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, for the North American belt. Ali and Ellis came up together as amateurs in Louisville, and they later trained and sparred together in Miami.

Their match-up was dubbed “The Inevitable Fight” due to their long history together and Ali won on a 12th-round technical knockout.

OTHER MEMORABLE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

1987: Stephen Roche became the first Irishman to win the Tour de France and only the second winner from outside continental Europe.

2004: Ashley Giles claimed his first five-wicket Test haul on home soil as England completed a 210-run win
over West Indies in the first Test at Lord’s.

2009: Alberto Contador won the Tour de France, with Andy Schleck second and Lance Armstrong third.