William Ashley “Billy” Sunday (1862–1935). Born on November 19, 1862, in Story County, Iowa, to a poor farming family, Billy Sunday rose from a hardscrabble childhood to become America’s most famous evangelist of the early 20th century. Orphaned at 10 after his father’s Civil War death and mother’s remarriage, he worked odd jobs before excelling as a professional baseball player for the Chicago White Stockings (1883–1890), known for speed despite a .248 batting average. Converted in 1886 at Chicago’s Pacific Garden Mission, he left baseball in 1891 to work with the YMCA and study briefly at Evanston Academy. Mentored by evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman, Sunday began preaching in 1896, holding over 300 revival campaigns across the U.S., drawing millions with theatrical, plainspoken sermons on sin, salvation, and prohibition. His tabernacles, like those in New York (1917), packed thousands nightly, reportedly leading to a million conversions. He authored no major books but shaped evangelicalism, supporting World War I and opposing evolution in schools. Married to Helen “Nell” Thompson in 1888, they had four children, though three sons’ scandals marred his later years. Sunday died of a heart attack on November 6, 1935, in Chicago, saying, “I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist.”