Jul 17, 2008, 13:03 GMT
Johannesburg - Rolihlahla (literally 'troublemaker') Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918 in Mvezo, Eastern Cape, the son of a chieftain of the Tembu clan, part of the Xhosa nation.
A file picture dated 17 February 2005 of former South African President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela launching the second of the 46664 music concerts that will highlight the plight of AIDS sufferers and the effect of HIV aids in the world, Johannesburg, South Africa. Mandela turns 90 on 18 July 2008. EPA/KIM LUDBROOK
After his father was stripped of his chieftainship over a dispute with a local magistrate, he moved with his mother to her home village of Qunu. On his father's death in 1927 he was taken to be raised by Tembu regent, Jongintaba Dalindyebo, at his residence in Mvezo.
In 1939, he enrolled at the only black university in South Africa, Fore Hare, where he met his later comrade-in-arms Oliver Tambo.
In 1940 he was expelled from Fort Hare for refusing to take up a position on the student council following a student boycott. Soon after, he moved to Johannesburg, where he threw himself into politics and his legal studies.
In 1943 he joined the African National Congress. A year later, Mandela, Tambo, Mandela's political mentor Walter Sisulu and Anton Lembede founded the militant ANC Youth League.
In 1944, Mandela married his first wife, Evelyn Mase, a nurse. The couple had four children together, three of whom are no longer alive.
In 1952, Mandela and Tambo opened South Africa's first black law practice. Mandela was also a key organizer of that year's mass Defiance Campaign of civil disobedience, for which he received a suspended sentence of nine months imprisonment with hard labour.
In 1956, he was one of 156 people arrested and charged with treason, relating to the ANC Freedom Charter (constitution) signed at a people's congress in Kliptown, Soweto the previous year. At the end of the marathon trial in 1961, all were acquitted.
In 1958, he divorced Evelyn and marries Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela. Two years later the ANC was banned and Mandela went into hiding, with the escapades of the 'Black Pimpernel' garnering much media attention.
In 1961, after much internal wrangling, the ANC launched its armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation), with Mandela as commander-in-chief and the group carried out its first act of sabotage.
In 1962, on returning from military training overseas, Mandela was arrested and convicted of incitement and leaving the country illegally. He was sentenced to five years in prison, which he began to serve on Robben Island prison off Cape Town.
In 1964, he and seven other ANC members were convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life in prison following the landmark Rivonia Trial. Mandela, the main accused, defended his struggle in a four-hour speech from the dock, famously declaring that ending white domination of blacks was an ideal 'for which I am prepared to die.'
Mandela returned to Robben Island, where he spent 18 of his total 27 years in prison. His eldest son died while he is behind bars but Mandela was refused permission to attend the funeral.
During his imprisonment Winnie was banned and banished to the Free State from her Soweto home, along with one of their two daughters.
In 1982, Mandela was moved to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland, and later in 1988, after undergoing surgery for an enlarged prostrate, to Victor Verster prison, where he had greater privileges.
In 1985, with the Free Mandela campaign in full swing internationally, Mandela began talks with the government, first of P.W. Botha, then of F.W. de Klerk, on ending minority white rule.
The talks eventually paved the way for the unbanning of the ANC and his release from prison in February 1990.
In 1991, multi-party negotiations paving the way for the holding of democratic elections began in Johannesburg.
In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1994, the ANC won a resounding majority in the country's first multi-racial elections and Mandela was sworn in as president, promising a better life for all South Africans.
In 1996, Mandela divorced Winnie. Two years later, on his 80th birthday, he made ex-Mozambican first lady, Graca Machel, his third wife.
After a single term as president he stepped down in 1999 but continued to travel widely and speak on domestic and international issues.
In 2004, he announced his 'retirement from retirement'. Since then, his public appearances have been limited mainly to fundraising activities on behalf of his HIV/AIDS and children's charities and meetings with visiting politicians and celebrities.
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