The Rumble in the Jungle

The Rumble in the Jungle was a historic boxing event in 1974 in Kinshasa, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo). Held at the 20th of May Stadium on the night of October 30, 1974 (4:00 am), it pitted the undefeated world heavyweight champion George Foreman against challenger Muhammad Ali, a former heavyweight champion. Attendance was about 60,000. Ali won by knockout, putting Foreman down just before the end of the eighth round. It has been called "arguably the greatest sporting event of the 20th century".

The event was one of Don King's first ventures as a professional boxing promoter. He managed to get Ali and Foreman to sign separate contracts saying they would fight for him if he could get a $5 million purse. However, King did not have the money, so he began looking for an outside country to sponsor the event. Zaïre's dictator Mobutu Sésé Seko asked for the fight to be held in his country, eager for the publicity such a high-profile event would bring. King had pulled together a consortium that included a Panamanian company called Risnelia Investment, the Hemdale Film Corporation, a British company founded by film producer John Daly and the actor David Hemmings, Video Techniques Incorporated of New York and Don King Productions. Although King is most closely associated with the fight, Hemdale and Video Techniques Inc., with whom King was a director, were the official co-promoters of the fight.

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali (/ɑːˈliː/; born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.; January 17, 1942) is an American former professional boxer, generally considered among the greatest heavyweights in the history of the sport. A controversial and polarizing figure during his early career, Ali is now highly regarded for the skills he displayed in the ring plus the values he exemplified outside of it: religious freedom, racial justice and the triumph of principle over expedience. He is one of the most recognized sports figures of the past 100 years, crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC.

Ali began training at 12 years old and at the age of 22 won the world heavyweight championship in 1964 from Sonny Liston in a stunning upset. Shortly after that bout, Ali joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name. He converted to Sunni Islam in 1975.

In 1967, three years after winning the heavyweight title, Ali refused to be conscripted into the U.S. military, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War. He was eventually arrested and found guilty on draft evasion charges and stripped of his boxing title. He did not fight again for nearly four years—losing a time of peak performance in an athlete's career. Ali's appeal worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where in 1971 his conviction was overturned. Ali's actions as a conscientious objector to the war made him an icon for the larger counterculture generation.

George Foreman

George Edward "Big George" Foreman (born January 10, 1949), is an American former professional boxer. In his boxing career he was a two-time world heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medallist. Outside the sport he went on to become an ordained minister, author and entrepreneur.

After a troubled childhood, Foreman took up boxing and was a gold medalist at the 1968 Olympics. He won the World Heavyweight title with a second-round knockout of then-undefeated Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1973. He made two successful title defenses before losing to Muhammad Ali in "The Rumble in the Jungle" in 1974. He was unable to secure another title shot, and retired following a loss to Jimmy Young in 1977. Following what he referred to as a religious epiphany, Foreman became an ordained Christian minister. Ten years later, he announced a comeback and, in November 1994, at age 45, he regained the Heavyweight Championship by knocking out 27-year-old Michael Moorer. Foreman is the oldest Heavyweight Champion in history, and second oldest in any weight class after Bernard Hopkins. He retired in 1997 at the age of 48, with a final record of 76–5, including 68 knockouts.

The Jungle

The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968). Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. However, most readers were more concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, based on an investigation he did for a socialist newspaper.

The book depicts working class poverty, the lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it, "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery."

Sinclair was considered a muckraker, or journalist who exposed corruption in government and business. He first published the novel in serial form in 1905, in the Socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, between February 25, 1905 and November 4, 1905. In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the newspaper. It was published as a book on February 26, 1906, by Doubleday and in a subscribers' edition.

Fugees

Fugees /ˈfuːdʒiːz/ (sometimes The Fugees; formerly Tranzlator Crew) were an American hip hop group who rose to fame in the mid-1990s. Their repertoire included elements of hip hop, soul and Caribbean music, particularly reggae. The members of the group were rapper/singer/producer Wyclef Jean, rapper/singer/producer Lauryn Hill, and rapper/producer Pras Michel. Deriving their name from the term refugee, Jean is Haitian, while Hill and Michel are American.

The group recorded two albums—one of which, The Score (1996), was a multi-Platinum and Grammy-winning success and contains their hit single "Killing Me Softly"—before disbanding in 1997. Hill and Jean each went on to successful solo recording careers; Michel focused on soundtrack recordings and acting, though he found commercial success with his song "Ghetto Supastar". In 2007, MTV ranked them the 9th greatest Hip-hop group of all time.

Career

Formation and beginnings

Lauryn Hill and Pras first met at Columbia High School, in South Orange, New Jersey. Pras, Lauryn, and a mutual friend named Marcy formed a musical trio called Tyme; Pras' cousin, Wyclef Jean, joined the trio and Marcy left soon after in 1990. The moniker Tranzlator Crew refers to the name of their band at the time, which included Johnny Wise on drums, T Boss (Jerry) on bass guitar, and Leon (DJ). In 1993, after some gigs and recorded demos, the trio signed to Ruffhouse, distributed through Columbia Records. The trio's name was later changed to Fugees, which was purposely taken from a word often used derogatorily to refer to Haitian-Americans (refugee). Refugee Camp, while a name sometimes credited to the trio, also refers to a number of artists affiliated with them, and particularly Jean.