He was actually born in 1901, though all his life he claimed he was born on the Fourth of July in 1900.
"What a Wonderful World" didn't make the Top 40 until 1988, two decades after it was recorded, thanks to its inclusion in the soundtrack of the movie "Good Morning Vietnam."
Though we know him by the nickname Satchmo, said to be short for "Satchel Mouth," his closest friends knew him as Pops.
Of Louis Armstrong, Wynton Marsalis once said, "Even if you lied about how great Pops is, he's greater than that."