The American evangelist Billy Graham has died at the age of 99.
Often considered the man who invented the modern evangelical movement, he claimed that he had preached the Gospel to more people than anyone else in history.
His "revival meetings" and "crusades" were a fixture on the American social landscape for more than 60 years, and he was revered by successive US Presidents.
All of them either invited him to the White House, or made the journey to meet him.
Our Washington Correspondent Simon Marks looks back on Billy Graham's long life.
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Whatever you think of Christian evangelicals the world over….whether you respect their attempts to spread Christianity….or dislike the high pressure "sell" in which some of them engage…..they all owe a debt of gratitude to Billy Graham.
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That was him in September 1949 at one of his earliest "revival meetings".
He held them in Los Angeles in circus tents - the "Canvas Cathedral" he called it - 30 years after he was born on a dairy farm in North Carolina.
It was at a revival meeting there, when he was 16, that he turned away from the Presbyterian Church and converted to evangelical Christianity.
He considered himself "saved", and decided that his mission in life was to spread the Word. 29 seconds
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The charismatic showmanship Graham displayed in Los Angeles attracted
the attention of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst…and it was his backing of Billy Graham that led the young preacher to national fame.
In 1950, he made his first visit to the Oval Office and urged Harry Truman to combat communism's spread in Asia….then knelt in prayer on the White House lawn.
Truman didn't entirely appreciate that.
By 1954, Billy Graham was on the cover of Time Magazine.
Constantly traveling the country….and constantly preaching the Gospel at specially-picked venues that could accommodate enormous crowds….even though he didn't know it at the time, he was inventing the mega-church, examples of which can be found all over the United States today.
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In 1959 he started exporting the Gospel internationally…..London was the first global outing for the Graham crusade.
And by the time the Swinging Sixties kicked in…Billy Graham was already established as America's priest….a man the media consulted on all manner of social developments…..like the influence of "The Beatles".
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It was that certainty in the sustaining power of his message that drove Billy Graham.
But he was also politically savvy to the ebbs and flows of life in the United States and the world.
In 1952, he decided to desegregate his crusades….blacks and whites could worship together.
It was a risky move.
He once paid bail money to secure Martin Luther King's freedom at the height of America's civil rights struggle.
But he only invited Dr. King to preach alongside him once, lest some in his flock felt he was pushing a political viewpoint that was at odds with theirs.
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As he got older, he got bolder.
He refused to visit apartheid South Africa until 1973, when the country's white minority government agreed to let him preach to multiracial audiences.
It was unprecedented, and the message he delivered was jarring to the authorities' ears.
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He went behind the Iron Curtain….to Moscow and other parts of the Soviet Union….even to reclusive North Korea.
But it was at home in the United States where Billy Graham had his greatest impact…and where he had access to the ears of successive Presidents.
That access sometimes brought controversy - in 2002 Graham had to apologize, when declassified tapes showed that he had told Richard Nixon that Jews had a "stranglehold" on the US media.
He preached at Nixon's funeral….attended the inaugurations of Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush….and enjoyed a close relationship with Bill Clinton….
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THANKS BUSH
When Al Qaeda struck America on September 11th 2001, another President Bush invited Billy Graham to lead the national service of remembrance.
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Billy Graham was married for 64 years to his wife Ruth.
They had five children, and his son Franklin is widely seen as his natural successor.
For the most part he eschewed radical Christian politics….Jesus, he liked to say, was not a member of a political party.
In his final public sermon, delivered in Baltimore in 2006, his voice was weakened by age…his showmanship stilled by infirmity.
But message was unyielding…even then, aged 87, Billy Graham was still bringing people to the Lord.
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It's estimated that more than 215 million people personally saw Billy Graham preach….and that excludes the audiences he reached on radio, television, and later in life on the Internet.
It also excludes the audiences other preachers have reached since 1949, when a young man pitched a tent in Los Angeles and the modern evangelical movement was born.
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