Short answers, pulled from the story.
Louis Armstrong was an American jazz and blues trumpeter and vocalist, nicknamed "Satchmo," "Satch," and "Pops," who lived from the 4th of August 1901 to the 6th of July 1971. He was among the most influential figures in jazz, shifting the music from collective improvisation to solo performance, and a celebrated singer known for his gravelly voice and scat singing.
Louis Armstrong is believed to have been born in New Orleans on the 4th of August 1901, though the accuracy of that date has been heavily debated. Armstrong himself often claimed he was born on the 4th of July 1900.
Louis Armstrong developed his cornet skills at the Colored Waif's Home, where Peter Davis became his first teacher and chose him as bandleader after Armstrong was sent there in 1912 for firing a blank into the air. Earlier, the Karnoffsky family gave him an advance to buy his first cornet from a pawn shop, and he later learned sight reading on Fate Marable's Mississippi riverboat band.
Louis Armstrong's best known songs include "What a Wonderful World," "La Vie en Rose," "Hello, Dolly!", "On the Sunny Side of the Street," and "When the Saints Go Marching In." His 1964 recording of "Hello, Dolly!" went to number one, knocking The Beatles off the top of the chart, and his Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions, including "West End Blues" and "Weather Bird," remain landmarks of jazz.
Louis Armstrong took a public stand for desegregation in 1957 after the conflict over school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas. He denounced Governor Orval Faubus and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, calling the President "two-faced" with "no guts," and threatened to cancel a State Department tour of the Soviet Union, saying "the government can go to hell."
Louis Armstrong died of a heart attack in his sleep on the 6th of July 1971 at his home in Corona, Queens, New York City. He was interred in Flushing Cemetery in Queens, with honorary pallbearers including Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Frank Sinatra.
Louis Armstrong earned the nickname "Ambassador Satch" by touring Africa, Europe, and Asia under the sponsorship of the US State Department, with performances in Egypt, Ghana, and Nigeria. His role as a cultural ambassador inspired Dave Brubeck to compose the jazz musical The Real Ambassadors.