Joe Louis

Louis is a member of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame.
. He was also named as the magazine's fighter of the year on four occasions, bettered only by Muhammad Ali's five awards. The number of contiguous configurations for one through seven blocks, counting reflections but not counting rotations is in this table:. Louis was named by Ring Magazine's as boxing's number one puncher in history in 2003. Lego itself sells a line of sets named "Lego Studios," which contains a Lego web cam (repackaged Logitech USB Quickcam), software to record video on a computer, clear plastic rods which can be used to manipulate minifigures from off-camera, and a minifigure resembling Steven Spielberg. They had allegedly covered it with white paint on February 23 of that year. Several webcomics are illustrated with Lego, notably Irregular Webcomic!.

White, pleaded guilty on charges of defacing the monument. Director Michel Gondry filmed a live version of the video, digitized the result, and then recreated it entirely with Lego bricks. On March 25, 2004, two men, Brett Cashman and John T. Another notable example is the award-winning music video for the song "Fell in Love with a Girl" by the White Stripes. It represents the power of his punch both inside and outside the ring. [2]. and executed by Robert Graham, is a 24-foot long arm with a fisted hand suspended by a 24-foot high pyramidal framework. 'Art Craziest Nation' was shown at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, UK.

The sculpture, commissioned by Time, Inc. The Little Artists have created an entire Modern Art collection in a Lego Gallery. A memorial to Louis was dedicated in Detroit (at Jefferson Avenue & Woodward) on October 16, 1986. Artists have also used Lego sets with one of the more notorious examples being Polish artist Zbigniew Libera's "Lego Concentration Camp," a collection of mocked-up concentration camp-themed Lego sets.[1]. He has a sports complex named after him in Detroit, the Joe Louis Arena, where the Detroit Red Wings play their NHL games. For example, the Monty Python and the Holy Grail Special Edition DVD contained a version of the "Camelot" musical sequence redone with Lego minifigures and accessories. His life and his achievements prompted famed New York sportswriter Jimmy Cannon to write "Joe Louis is a credit to his race - the human race.". They usually use stop-motion animation.

He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia. Such movies are called "Lego movies", "Brickfilms", or "cinema Lego". Joe Louis died of a heart attack in 1981. One hobby among enthusiasts is to re-create popular scenes from famous movies, using Lego bricks for the scenery and Lego play sets as characters. I regret Joe isn't still alive and we were still friends". Another novel application of Lego bricks is the combination of bricks and electronic components to obtain a Lego Electronic Lab Kit. When asked, on his 90th birthday, if he had any regrets he replied "I only have one. Because of the high degree of uniformity in Lego bricks, they have also been used in fields such as computer vision, in which knowing the exact dimensions and relative positions of objects is useful for creating test data.

Max Schmeling was also heartbroken by Louis' death. A set of software tools called LDraw or Lego Digital Designer can be used to model possible Lego creations in 3D. He ended the article with the words, "I was proud to have fought him and prouder still to have been his friend". The website theory.org.uk (by academic David Gauntlett) features Lego versions of social theorists. He recalled their classic fight and how close he came to defeating Louis. Legowars, the generic term for a number of wargames (most notably Brikwars) involving Lego bricks enjoys a cult-like popularity. After Louis' death, Conn wrote an article in Reader's Digest magazine called "Unforgettable Joe Louis". The site features over 2,000 photographs of Biblical scenes.

Louis had also become close friends with Billy Conn. For example, at The Brick Testament "The Reverend" Brendan Powell Smith has built the Bible in Lego pieces. They remained friends until Joe Louis' death, when Schmeling paid for his funeral and was one of the pallbearers. Lego toys have been used in a number of unexpected ways. In fact, Schmeling and Louis became close personal friends over the years, and the compassionate Schmeling (who was awarded control of the German Coca-Cola bottler after WWII) would often send him money. A group which calls itself "AFOLs" (for "Adult Fans of Lego") is an important demographic for The Lego Group, which has recently begun reintroducing popular sets from previous years to appeal to this group. In his later years, he got a job welcoming tourists to the Caesar's Palace hotel in Las Vegas, where many world boxing champions and legends from other walks of life, including old rival Max Schmeling, would visit him. Photos of many fan creations like these can be seen at Brickshelf and at MOCpages.

Louis was eventually able to overcome his addiction. One such masterpiece solves a Rubik's Cube through the use of Lego motors and cameras, a task that many humans cannot accomplish. His wife was forced to have him committed to a Denver mental hospital in 1970. Large mosaics, fully functional padlocks and pendulum clocks, a harpsichord and an inkjet printer (built by Google co-founder Larry Page while at the University of Michigan) have been constructed from Lego pieces. He began suffering from paranoia and delusions. Some sculptures use hundreds of thousands of pieces and weigh tens of kilograms. It was in the late 1960s that Louis also became addicted to cocaine. A cult following of people who have used Lego pieces to make sculptures, very large mosaics and complex machines has developed.

Louis remained a popular celebrity until his twilight years, when he began suffering various illnesses, notably Pugilistic Parkinson's syndrome, and ran out of money. The Lego Group itself has developed a form of business consultancy fostering creative thinking, called Lego Serious Play, in which team members build metaphors of their organisational experiences using Lego bricks, and work through imaginary scenarios using the visual device of the Lego constructions and by exploring possibilities in a 'serious' form of 'play'. A few years after his retirement, a movie about his life, The Joe Louis Story, was filmed in Hollywood. Lego bricks today are used for purposes beyond children's play. But later on in life, he was able to kick his drug habit. As of year end 2005, there are 25 LEGO Brand Retail stores in the USA, a number of stores in Europe, and a franchised LEGO store in Abu Dhabi. Louis faced a drug problem, a fact not too many people knew about but which was made public by a boxing book published by Ring Magazine, just as in Sugar Ray Robinson's case. There are also several Lego retail stores, including at Downtown Disney in both the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts and in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Louis became a professional wrestler in 1956 but quit in 1957 due to injuries suffered during a match. Lego Group operates several Legoland amusement parks in Europe and California. He retired with a record of 68 wins and 3 losses, with 54 wins by a knockout. It also allows advanced participants an opportunity to modify the Lego Mindstorms platform, adding their own sensors and actuators, as well as other mechanical, electrical, electronic and software related systems. Louis did not embarrass himself that night, but it was obvious his best years had gone by. Lego Mindstorms provides primary and secondary school aged participants of RoboCup Junior an easy and intuitive introduction to robotics. In 1951, however, he would box what would be his final fight: In front of a national television audience, Louis lost by a knockout in eight rounds to the future world Heavyweight Champion, Rocky Marciano. The international RoboCup Junior autonomous soccer competition involves extensive use of Lego Mindstorms equipment which is often pushed to its limits.

Seven more wins followed, including a rematch with Brion and a decision over fellow hall of famer Jimmy Bivins. A related competition is FIRST Lego League for elementary and middle schools. He kept boxing, and in his next fight he beat fringe contender Cesar Brion by a decision in 10. The earliest, and likely the largest, is Botball, a national US middle- and high-school competition stemming from the MIT 6270 lego robotics tournament. debt, he announced a comeback and was promptly given a chance to recover his title, but he lost a 15 round unanimous decision to world champion Ezzard Charles, who had won the title after Louis left it vacant. There are several competitions which use Lego bricks and the RCX, among other microcontrollers, for robotics. In 1950, burdened by I.R.S. These programmable bricks are sold under the name Lego Mindstorms.

On March 1, 1949 Louis announced his retirement from boxing. There are even special bricks, like the LEGO RCX that can be programmed with a PC to perform very complicated and useful tasks. He still managed to fend off every challenger until he retired for the first time, after the second Walcott bout. There are also motors, gears, lights, sensors, and cameras available to be used with Lego components. After he came back to keep defending his title in 1946, Louis looked somewhat slower in his fights, and his best years seemed to have gone. LEGO recently announced the procurement of worldwide toy rights with the cable TV channel Nickelodeon for building sets with themes from two hit TV shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants and Avatar: The Last Airbender which will be available Summer of 2006. He even acted in a couple of movies, produced by the Army to entice men to go to the war. Sets containing new pieces are released frequently.

During this time, he became a national spokesman for the Army, inviting young men to join in and help their country in the war. Since it began producing plastic bricks, the Lego Group has released thousands of play sets themed around space, robots, pirates, vikings, medieval castles, dinosaurs, cities, suburbia, holiday locations, wild west, the Arctic, boats, racing cars, trains, Spider-Man, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Bionicle, and more. Louis joined the Army from 1942 to 1945 and spent that whole period travelling around Europe visiting with the fighting troops and boxing in exhibitions. Annual production of Lego bricks averages approximately 20 billion (2 × 10¹⁰) per year, or about 600 pieces per second. Apart from Schmeling, Farr, Mann and Thomas, other notable title defenses during that period were:. Brick decorations and packaging is done at plants in Denmark, Switzerland, United States, South Korea and the Czech Republic. He set records for any division in number of defenses and longevity as world champion non stop, and both records still stand. Moulding is done at one of two plants in Denmark and Switzerland.

He was a world champion for 11 years and 10 months, after which he left his crown vacant. Manufacturing of Lego bricks occurs at a number of locations around the world. In between serving in the United States Army during the Second World War, Louis kept on defending his title, totalling 25 defenses from '37 to 1949. It is thanks to this care in manufacturing that the Lego Group has maintained such a high degree of quality over the decades; this is one of the main reasons that pieces manufactured over 40 years ago still interlock neatly with pieces manufactured today. Louis favored Willkie over FDR because he believed that Willkie and the Republicans would do more for civil rights. According to the Lego Group, its moulding processes are so accurate that only 18 bricks out of every million fail to meet its stringent standards. In 1940 Louis actively campaigned for Wendell Willkie for the presidency. Worn-out moulds are encased in the foundations of buildings to prevent their falling into competitors' hands.

But by beating a German boxer, Louis won over whites too, something very hard to do during the 1930s and 1940s in the United States. Precision-machined, small-capacity moulds are used, and human inspectors meticulously check the output of the moulds, to eliminate significant variations in colour or thickness. Louis was black, so when he won the title, he had become an example to his fellow black Americans. Since 1963, Lego pieces are manufactured from a strong, resilient plastic known as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, or ABS. With his superior speed, Louis retained his title by a knockout in the first round, avenging his only loss up until that time and achieving something not too many African-Americans of the era imagined anyone could do: becoming a national hero both for the white and the black population. In order for pieces to have just the right "clutch power", Lego elements are manufactured within a tolerance of 2 micrometres (0.00008 in). The fight itself ended quickly. They cannot be too easy to pull apart, or the result will be Lego creations that are unstable; they cannot be too difficult to pull apart, since the disassembly of one creation in order to build another is part of the Lego appeal.

This time the fight was hyped on both sides of the Atlantic, and many fans around the world saw this fight as a symbol: Louis representing the American interests and Schmeling, who was wrongly seen as a Nazi, fighting for Germany and white supremacy. When snapped together, pieces must have just the right amount of "clutch power"; they must stay together until pulled apart. The rematch with Schmeling finally took place, on June 22, 1938. Bricks, beams, axles, minifigures, and all other elements in the Lego system are manufactured to an exacting degree of tolerance. Louis retained the title three times, outpointing the capable Welshman Tommy Farr and knocking out Nathan Mann in three and Harry Thomas in five. Retail Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers. He said after the fight, however, that he would not feel like a world champion until he beat one man: Schmeling. Lego pieces from 1963 still interlock with pieces made in 2006, despite radical changes in shape and design over the years.

Louis was dropped in round one, but he got up and became the world champion by knocking Braddock out in round eight. Since their introduction in 1949, Lego pieces of all varieties have been, first and foremost, part of a system. Braddock in Chicago for the World Heavyweight title. Nevertheless, such corporate admonitions are frequently ignored as corporate intervention in the use of language, and the word lego is commonly used not only as a noun to refer to Lego bricks but also as a generic term referring to any kind of interlocking toy brick. 1937 came by, and after a ten round decision win over Bob Pastor, Louis was matched with world champion James J. The company asserts that to protect its brand name, the word Lego must always be used as an adjective, as in "LEGO set," "LEGO products," "LEGO universe," and so forth. The referee stopped the fight right away. "Lego" is officially written in all uppercase letters.

Among the boxers he defeated were former Heavyweight champ Jack Sharkey and Eddie Simms, who turned and asked the referee to take a walk on the roof with him after a hit from Louis. Thank you! Susan Williams, Consumer Services. That year Louis had four more bouts, winning all of them, and three exhibitions. Please always refer to our bricks as 'LEGO Bricks or Toys' and not 'LEGOS.' By doing so, you will be helping to protect and preserve a brand of which we are very proud and that stands for quality the world over. Schmeling now deserved a fight for the title, but was denied a chance to challenge the world champion in large part due to his relatively weak ties to the German Nazi Party. We would sincerely like your help in keeping it special. Louis and his supporters were devastated. The word LEGO® is a brand name and is very special to all of us in the LEGO Group Companies.

Schmeling managed to weather Louis's pummeling long enough to exploit this weakness and bring down Louis. Lego catalogues in the 1970s and 1980s contained a note that read:. The German had studied Louis and discovered that he dropped his left hand after throwing his legendary left jab. The Lego Group's name has become so synonymous with its flagship toy that many use the words "Lego" (collectively) or "Legos" to refer to the bricks themselves, and even to any plastic bricks resembling Lego bricks, although the Lego Group discourages this as dilution of their trademark. In his next fight, however, he was matched with former world Heavyweight champion Max Schmeling, who was thought to be fading when he upset Louis by a knockout in 12 at New York. Over the years many more Lego sets, series, and pieces were created, with many innovative improvements and additions, culminating in the colourful versatile building toys that we know today. He began 1936 knocking out Charlie Retzlaff in the first round. It wasn't until 1958 that the modern-day brick design was developed, and it took another five years to find exactly the right material for it.

His last four bouts that year were exhibitions in Canada, as one fight versus Isodoro Castagana, supposed to take place December 29 at Havana, Cuba, was suspended. Godtfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: their "locking" ability was limited, and they were not very versatile. He won each of his fights, and he began to face better opposition, beating former world Heavyweight champions Primo Carnera and Max Baer, and former Carnera world title challenger Paolino Uzcudun. It was his conversation with an overseas buyer that struck the idea of a toy system. In 1935, he boxed 13 more times, and started touring the United States and Canada. By 1954, Christiansen's son, Godtfred, had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group. Among his opponents in 1934 were Art Sykes and Stanley Poreda, both top contenders. Many of the Lego Group's shipments were returned, following poor sales; it was thought that plastic toys could never replace wooden ones.

He won 12 fights that year, all in Chicago, 10 by knockout. The use of plastic for toy manufacture was not highly regarded by retailers and consumers of the time. Louis made his debut on July 4 of that year, knocking out Jack Kracken in the first round at Chicago, Illinois that night. The blocks snapped together, but not so tightly that they couldn't be pulled apart. He went on to win Michigan's Golden Gloves title, after which he turned professional in 1934. They had several round "studs" on top, and a hollow rectangular bottom. The son of Monroe Barrow, a cotton picker, and Lilly Reese, a homemaker, Louis became interested in boxing after the Barrows moved to Detroit in 1924. A few years later, in 1949, Lego began producing similar bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks." These bricks, manufactured from cellulose acetate, were developed in the spirit of traditional wooden blocks that could be stacked upon one another; however, these plastic bricks could be "locked" together.

. Hilary Harry Fisher Page, a child psychologist. Joseph Louis Barrow (1914-1981), better known in the boxing world as Joe Louis and nicknamed The Brown Bomber, was a native of Lexington, Alabama who became World Heavyweight Champion. These "Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks" were designed and patented in the UK by Mr. his two fights versus future world Heavyweight champion Jersey Joe Walcott, who would drop Louis in round four of their first bout and lose a close decision, then get knocked out by Louis in the rematch in 11 rounds. In 1947, Ole Kirk and his son Godtfred obtained samples of interlocking plastic bricks produced by the company Kiddicraft. In the rematch, Louis won by a knockout in the eighth round. It should be noted, however, that the original, Greek verb "legein" actually has the meaning "put together".

His decision to go toe-to-toe with Louis turned out to be his downfall, as the champion KO'd Conn with a vicious barrage. The Lego Group claims that "Lego" means "I put together" or "I assemble" in Latin, though this is a rather liberal translation; the more accepted and widely used application of the word is "I read". Near the end of round 12, though, Conn visibly hurt Louis, so he decided to go for a knockout in the 13th. The company name Lego was coined by Christiansen from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning "play well". Conn, much smaller than Louis but also much faster, said that he planned to "hit and run,' prompting Louis's famous response, "He can run, but he can't hide." For 12 rounds it appeared that Conn would prove Louis wrong; his agile footwork, blinding hand speed and ability to slip punches stymied Louis, and Conn was so far ahead on points that only a knockout could save Louis. Ole Kirk started creating wooden toys in 1932, but it wasn't until 1949 that the famous plastic Lego brick was created. his two fights with world Light Heavyweight champion Billy Conn, the first of which is remembered as one of the greatest fights in heavywieght history. The Lego Group had humble beginnings in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a poor carpenter from Billund, Denmark.

his two fights with Chilean Arturo Godoy, who almost did something no other boxer from Chile has ever done and no Hispanic had done before: Become world Heavyweight champion in their first bout, which Louis won by a close decision, and when Louis won the rematch by a knockout in the eight round, a riot broke loose at the Madison Square Garden. . his fight with Two Ton Tony Galento, who upset the boxing world by knocking Louis down in round one, but Louis got up and knocked Galento out in the fourth. The sets are produced by the Lego Group, a privately-held company based in Denmark. his fight versus world Light Heavyweight champion John Henry Lewis, knocked out in the first. High production quality and careful attention to detail ensures that Lego pieces can fit together in myriad ways, which is one of the main reasons for the toy's success. Cars, planes, trains, buildings, castles, sculptures, ships, spaceships, and even working robots are just a few of the many things that can be made with Lego bricks.

Lego is a line of toys featuring colourful plastic bricks, gears, minifigures (also called minifigs or mini-figs), and other pieces which can be assembled to create models of almost anything imaginable. The number 102,981,504 (four more than that figure) is the number of six-piece towers (of a height of six). The figure of 102,981,500 is often given for six pieces, but it is incorrect. Six eight-stud Lego bricks of the same colour can be put together in 915,103,765 ways, and just three bricks of the same colour offer 1,560 combinations.

"Legot" (or "leegot"), plural form of "lego" (or "leego") is also used as a Finnish slang term for human teeth, because of the rectangular shape of the teeth.