Louis Armstrong was born on August 4th 1901, and died July 6th 1971. His father worked in a factory, and abandoned his mother after he was born. Having grown up in "The Battlefield", a neighborhood nicknamed for being so poor, he had to leave school in the 5th grade to get a job collecting junk and delivering coal. Armstrong developed his singing in a barbershop quartet, but didn't discover the cornet until he went to the Colored Waif's Home for Boys for shooting a gun in the air during a New Year's Eve celebration. During the 1920's Luis was famous for his singing and cornet/trumpet playing.