6 Interesting Things You Didn't Know About Billy Graham.. The Rev. Billy Graham, a North Carolina farmer’s son who preached to millions in stadium events he called crusades, becoming a pastor to presidents and the nation’s best-known Christian evangelist for more than 60 years, died on Wednesday at his home in Montreat, N.C. He was 99. His death was confirmed by Jeremy Blume, a spokesman for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He was ordained a minister in 1939, aged 21. Graham's public profile was raised in the United States when he held a two-month ministry in a giant tent in Los Angeles in 1949. His global mission took him to all corners of the world including Nigeria and communist North Korea. An early sermon outside the US took place before 12,000 worshippers in 1954 in Haringay Arena, London. At first ambivalent about the civil rights movement in the US, he became more sympathetic in the 1950s, preaching to racially integrated congregations. Mr. G...