Editor’s note: This article is part of We the People , a series marking the upcoming 250th birthday of the United States of America by Gray Media, parent company of WANF Atlanta News First .

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - The return of the champion ended with Atlanta’s most famous armed robbery in history.

On Oct. 26, 1970, Muhammad Ali returned to the ring for the first time since his three-year suspension from boxing for refusing to be inducted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

The fight was set in Atlanta at the Municipal Auditorium — the site of Friday night professional wrestling, all-night gospel singing and President William Howard Taft’s 1909 pre-inaugural possum dinner — and what happened in its aftermath lives forever in Atlanta lore.

Ali’s r

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