Former world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, whose record-setting boxing career, unprecedented flair for showmanship, and controversial stands made him one of the best-known figures of the 20th century, died on Friday aged 74. Ali’s death was confirmed in a statement issued by family spokesman Bob Gunnell late Friday evening, a day after he was admitted to a Phoenix-area hospital with a respiratory ailment. “A part of me slipped away, the greatest piece,” George Foreman, a former heavyweight boxer who fought Ali, said on Twitter after the news of Ali’s death.